Research Article A Randomized, Triple-Blind, Placebo-Controlled, Add-On Clinical Trial to Evaluate the Efficacy of Emblica officinalis in Uncontrolled Hypertension Samad Ghaffari, 1 Maryam Navabzadeh, 2 Mojtaba Ziaee, 3 Ali Ghobadi, 2 Roshanak Ghods, 2 and Fataneh Hashem-Dabaghian 2 1 Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran 2 Research Institute for Islamic and Complementary Medicine, School of Persian Medicine, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran 3 Medicinal Plants Research Center, Maragheh University of Medical Sciences, Maragheh, Iran Correspondence should be addressed to Fataneh Hashem-Dabaghian; dabaghian.f@iums.ac.ir Received 17 March 2020; Revised 11 July 2020; Accepted 23 September 2020; Published 7 October 2020 Academic Editor: Pratibha V. Nerurkar Copyright © 2020 Samad Ghaffari et al. is is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Introduction. Emblica officinalis (EO) has some cardiovascular effects, and there are some animal studies that show its anti- hypertensive effect. is study was conducted to determine the effect of combination of EO with standard therapy on the systolic blood pressure (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) in patients with uncontrolled hypertension. Materials and Methods. is was a randomized, triple-blind, placebo-controlled, 8-week study. Ninety-two patients with uncontrolled hypertension despite taking hypotensive drugs were randomly assigned into two groups to take EO (500 mg/TDS after meal) or placebo in combination with standard antihypertensive drugs. After 2, 4, 6, and 8 weeks of intervention, SBP and DBP and heart rate (HR) were measured. Data were analyzed by SPSS software using repeated measures ANOVA. Results. Eighty-one patients (41 in the drug group and 40 in the placebo group) completed the study for 8 weeks and were analyzed. e mean ± standard deviation of age was 53.64 ± 10.01 years. SBP decreased as 15.6 ± 8.23% in the EO group and 6.3 ± 7.49% in the placebo group (P < 0.001). DBP decreased as 12.3 ± 7.87% and 3.88 ± 7.98%, respectively (P < 0.001). Time effect was not significant, but the group effect was significant (F � 13.875, P � 0.001 for systolic BP and F � 18.948, P < 0.001 for diastolic BP). No side effects were reported during the study. Conclusion. Eight-week combination therapy of EO with standard antihypertensive drugs significantly reduced the SBP and DBP more than placebo in patients with uncontrolled hypertension. 1. Introduction Hypertension is one of the important public health and economic problems “worldwide”. e prevalence of hy- pertension is high both in developing and developed countries [1, 2]. It has been estimated that 60% of adults will have hypertension by the year 2025 [3]. Based on the results of a systematic review until 2012, the overall prevalence of hypertension in Iran was about 22% [4]. Another systematic review in 2017 reported the prevalence of hypertension in Iran as about 17% [5]. Hypertension is an important predictor of premature death and disability and plays a key role in the mortality and morbidity from cardiovascular diseases and cerebrovascular accidents [6]. In2010,highbloodpressurewasoneofthe5or6leading risk factors for Global Burden of Disease (GBD) worldwide, as assessed by DALYs [7]. e goal of the World Health Organization (WHO) is to reduce the prevalence of hypertension to 25% [8]. Hyper- tension is the most prevalent risk factor for cardiovascular diseases and death globally [9]. Despite the availability of Hindawi Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine Volume 2020, Article ID 8592869, 7 pages https://doi.org/10.1155/2020/8592869