Food and plant bioactives for reducing cardiometabolic disease risk: an evidence based approach (original) (raw)
* Corresponding authors
a Atherosclerosis and Metabolic Diseases Research Center, Medical & Surgical Sciences Dept., Alma Mater Studiorum – University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy
E-mail: arrigo.cicero@unibo.it
Abstract
Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are one of the major causes of mortality and disability in Western countries. Prevention is known to be the cornerstone to lessen the incidence of CVDs and also to reduce the economic burden of both the citizen and the healthcare system. “Interventional medicine” certainly puts lifestyle modification as the first therapeutic step, including a healthy diet and physical activity. Secondly, a large body of research individuated a number of food and plant bioactives, which are potentially efficacious in preventing and reducing some highly prevalent CV risk factors, such as hypercholesterolemia, hypertension, vascular inflammation and vascular compliance. Some lipid- and blood pressure-lowering bioactives were studied for their impact on human vascular health, particularly as regards endothelial function and arterial stiffness. Several nutraceuticals showed additive or synergistic properties in combination, sometimes (but not always) allowing a reduction of the administered dose of extracts and determining a “multi-factorial” final effect on many cardiovascular risk factors. Thus, this review focuses on available evidence regarding the effects of berberine, plant sterols, green tea extract, soy, curcumin, cocoa, pycnogenol, lycopene, olive oil, soluble fibers, garlic, resveratrol, beetroot, mineral salts and vitamins on the lipid profile, blood pressure, inflammatory and endothelial markers, and vascular compliance. Future clinical research studies will have to focus more on middle term modification of the instrumental markers of vascular aging than on short-term effects on indirect laboratory risk markers.
You have access to this article
Please wait while we load your content... Something went wrong. Try again?
Article information
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1039/C7FO00178A
Article type
Review Article
Submitted
05 Feb 2017
Accepted
03 May 2017
First published
05 May 2017
Download Citation
Food Funct., 2017,8, 2076-2088
Permissions
Food and plant bioactives for reducing cardiometabolic disease risk: an evidence based approach
A. F. G. Cicero, F. Fogacci and A. Colletti,Food Funct., 2017, 8, 2076DOI: 10.1039/C7FO00178A
To request permission to reproduce material from this article, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.
If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.
If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.
Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.