Discussion

Serum cholesterol is a major causative agent in the development of coronary heart disease (CHD). Some studies have demonstrated a fall in total serum cholesterol resulting from ingestion of soluble fibre [19,20] suggesting that high cereal fiber may protect against ischemic heart disease (IHD) as well as high blood pressure, serum cholesterol and triglyceride levels. Our study with daily intake of ≥ 3 times of different types of fruit and vegetables totaling 500 g for 8 weeks produced significant reduction in systolic blood pressure. The reduction in the blood pressure might be due to significant high level of fibre. It has been shown that African local fruits and vegetables are rich in dietary fibre, which has been reported to have hypotensive and hypocholesterol effects [21]. Replacing animal products with vegetarian diets have shown reduction in blood pressure in normotensive as well as hypertensive individuals [22,23]

In a large randomized controlled trial of diet and blood pressure that provided a diet for 8 week that included 8.5 or 3.6 (control) servings of vegetables and fruit daily, the participants who consumed the higher vegetable and fruit diet had a greater reduction in systolic and diastolic than did the control subjects [24].

Elevated serum total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol concentration, are identified risk factors for coronary artery disease [25,26]. However, in this study, we observed lower serum total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol and triacylglycerol. These results may account for the significant reduction in BP in our patients. A recent study has reported similar observation with 900 effects of garlic may be due to inhibition of hepatic cholesterol biosynthesis [29].

In another study, [21,22] African local fruits and vegetables have been shown to be rich in dietary fibre, which have been reported to have hypotensive and hypocholestrolemic effects. The plant sterols have also been shown to produce a reduction of plasma low-density lipoprotein-cholesterol and produced prolonged platelet aggregation after collagen epinephrine activation (33).

Our results indicate that fruits and vegetables associated with lower cardiovascular risk factors; lower BP, cholesterol, triciglycerol and soluble fiber thus preventing premature cardiovascular disorders. We therefore conclude that consumption of a combination of fruits and vegetable may enhance healthier lifestyle resulting in the more favourable status of decreased incidence of cardiovascular risk factors.

¹Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Basic Medical Sciences, Obafemi Awolowo College of Health Sciences, Olabisi Onabanjo University, Remo Campus, Ikenne, Nigeria
²Department of Physiology, Faculty of Basic Medical Sciences, Obafemi Awolowo College of Health Sciences, Olabisi Onabanjo University, Remo Campus, Ikenne, Nigeria
³Department of Heamatology, School of Medicine, College of Medical Sciences, University of Benin, Benin-City, Nigeria

Lipids in Health and Disease 2006, 5:14     doi:10.1186/1476-511X-5-14


© 2006 Adebawo et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.