Effects of sea buckthorn puree on risk factors of cardiovascular disease in hypercholesterolemia population: a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial

Abstract

To investigate the effect of sea buckthorn puree consumption on reducing blood lipid and other risk factors of CVD. A total of 111 patients with hypercholesteromia who were treated with 90 ml sea buckthorn puree or placebo for 90 days were enrolled in this trial. Physical examination and analysis of lipid markers, hsCRP concentrations and cell adhesion protein concentrations with fasting blood samples were performed at 0-day, 45-day and 90-day after treatment. We found that the sea buckthorn puree did not affect the levels of serum total cholesterol (TC), low density lipoprotein-cholesterol (LDL-C) and triglyceride (TG). However, the level of HDL-C was decreased by sea buckthorn puree in a short period (first 6 weeks), which was increased in the last 6 weeks (p < 0.05). Compared with placebo, diastolic blood pressure (DBP) was decreased after taking sea buckthorn puree (p > 0.05). There was moderately decreased in hsCRP concentration in sea buckthorn group. Nevertheless, there was no correlation between changes in ICAM-1 and VCAM-1 concentration. In conclusion, long term consumption of sea buckthorn puree has anti-inflammatory and anti-hypertensive effects on hypercholesterolemia in hypercholesterolemic patients. However, it did not translate into an effect on the concentration of lipid markers in the circulation.

Keywords:

• Sea buckthorn
• cardiovascular disease
• hypercholesterolemia
• blood lipid
• blood pressure

Acknowledgments

We thank China Administration Centre of sea buckthorn Development (CACSD) the Ministry of Water Resources, P. R. China for giving us support on providing sea buckthorn puree.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This study was funded by the National natural science foundation of China [No. 81472969].