**1. Introduction**

Non-communicable diseases (NCD), also known as chronic diseases represent one of the most serious health challenges of the 21st century. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), global mortality due to NCD is projected to reach 55 million of deaths in the next 20 years, with 25 million of death caused by cardiovascular diseases (CVD) [1-3]. This is drawing a particular attention to the importance of intensifying research in the area aiming at fighting CVD through prevention and treatment. In a recent report of the WHO, CVD already ac‐ counted for 48% of NCD deaths [1]. Additionally, hypertension has been estimated to be the major risk factor for CVD morbidity and mortality, causing 51% of stroke deaths and 45% of coronary heart diseases deaths [1, 3]. Furthermore, CVD is increasing in the low- and middleincome with Sub-Saharan African countries recording the highest rate of hypertension [1-3]. It has been observed that these countries record an increase in the overall rate of hypertension mainly because of severe financial constraints for its management and control [1, 4].

With the prevalence of hypertension in the world's death rate, new approaches to investigate the treatment and management of this disease are highly in demand in order to reduce the overall rate of adult mortality from CVD. Quest for solutions has open doors to research in the field of alternative and complementary medicine as an effective, safe, simple and inexpensive strategy. Medicinal plants and fruits and vegetables are reputed for their excellent healthenhancing bioactive micronutrients,their cost-effectiveness and their widespread bioavailabil‐ ity [5-9]. While some medicinal plants have been investigated in hypertension research, many remain a mystery [5-9]. Therefore, the interest of this review is to summarize the findings of recent studies on the potential cardioprotective effect of *Parkia biglobosa*, a locally available medicinal West African plant that has been reported to display anti-inflammatory, antimicro‐ bial, antioxidant, anti-cancer and hypotensive activities in its diverse parts [10-14]. In this

© 2014 Alinde et al.; licensee InTech. This is a paper distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

chapter, a brief explanatory overview of hypertension and its implication in CVD will be given followed by a summary of potential ability of *Parkia biglobosa* to modulate health, especially CVD.

when compared to developing countries [16, 18]. Actually, the low- and middle-income countries, especially Sub-Saharan African countries record an increase in the overall rate of hypertension mostly because of the severe financial constraints, limited set of health services,

Potential Role of *Parkia biglobosa* in the Management and Treatment of Cardiovascular Diseases

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/57229

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The aetiology of EH remains a mystery. Even though, EH is the commonest form of hyper‐ tension (90% - 95% of all cases), the underlying defects triggering its onset are not known. This explains the difficulty in finding a definite cure. It has been theoretically proposed (Mosaic Theory of Dr Irvine Page) that the aetiology of EH is multifactorial with genetic, environmental, anatomical, adaptive, neural, endocrine, humoral, haemodynamic risk factors and that those different risk factors interlink together to cause hypertension [25-27]. Some of these risk factors

Various dietary habits and unhealthy lifestyle have also been identified to play a major role in

**•** Adoption of diets characterised by high intake of glucose, high intake of saturated fat and

The consequences of this adopted lifestyle give the rise to metabolic and physiological alterations which mediate the pathogenesis of hypertension and promotes other deleterious conditions such as hyperglycaemia (principal characteristic of diabetes) and hyperlipidaemia

Genetic factors are thought to play a prominent role in the development of essential hyper‐ tension, especially genetic abnormalities of the baroreceptor system. However, the genes for

The baroreceptor system consists of nerves ending receptors sensitive to stretch, pulse rate and pressure changes of the blood vessels [30]. They are present on the wall of large arteries such as the aortic arch and the carotid sinus (Figure 1). They stand as the first line of neural control system over blood pressure fluctuation and constitute a short term regulation of BP [31-33]. With a significant change in BP, baroreceptors transmit impulses to central nervous system (CNS)to activate a "feedback" mechanism from autonomous nervous system calledbarorecep‐

cholesterol, high intake of salt (exceeding 5.8 grams daily) [6, 28].

low access to facilities and low level of awareness, control, treatment campaigns [4].

**2.1. Aetiology of essential hypertension**

are described below:

**•** Pollutants

**•** Use of tobacco,

*2.1.1. Environmental risk factors*

the pathogenesis of hypertension such as:

**•** Lack of weight maintenance (sport inactivity),

**•** Chronic consumption of alcohol,

(principal characteristic of obesity) [29].

hypertension have not yet been identified.

*2.1.2. Hereditary risk factors*
