One paper, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in 2012, discovered that – depending on their genes – people with cardiovascular disease could reduce their blood pressure and, ultimately, their risk of heart disease and stroke by upping their intake of vitamin B2.
As part of the research, 83 participants with one of three genotypes were given 1.6mg of riboflavin or a placebo every day for 16 weeks.
These patients had already taken part in another study with riboflavin eight years prior.
The more recent study reached the same conclusion – that patients with a specific variation in the gene encoding, known as the methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase (MTHFR), had higher systolic blood pressure, with a non-significant trend noted for higher diastolic blood pressure.
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