A new non-alcoholic beverage made of red wine vinegar and grape juice (Budo-no-megumi TM ) has been recently demonstrated to lower the blood pressure of human as well as rats. In this study, we pharmacologically analyzed the mechanism of its hypotensive action. The thoracic aorta with intact endothelium was isolated from Sprague-Dawley rats, and incubated with a Tyrode's solution. The beverage in concentrations of 0.25 to 2% relaxed the pre-contracted aorta with an a a-adrenoceptor agonist

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... lephrine in a concentration-dependent manner, 2% of which induced 59% relaxation. In contrast, the vasodilator response disappeared in the aorta without endothelium. L-Nitro-arginine methyl ester (L-NAME), an inhibitor of nitric oxide synthase, significantly reduced the vasodilator effect of the beverage, whereas indomethacin, an inhibitor of cyclooxygenase, hardly affected it. These results suggest that the beverage can activate the nitric oxide synthase activity to exert vasodilation, which may partly explain its previously reported hypotensive action.