Lipids in Health and Disease (Jun 2011)

Dietary red palm oil supplementation decreases infarct size in cholesterol fed rats

  • Esterhuyse Adriaan J,
  • Csonka Csaba,
  • Csont Tamas,
  • Kupai Krisztina,
  • Bester Dirk J,
  • Szucs Gergo,
  • Ferdinandy Peter,
  • Van Rooyen Jacques

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1186/1476-511X-10-103
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 10, no. 1
p. 103

Abstract

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Abstract Background and Aims The effect of red palm oil (RPO) supplementation on infarct size after ischaemia/reperfusion in a cholesterol enriched diet-induced hyperlipidemic animal model has not been reported. Previous studies reported results on the effect of RPO in a normal diet, whilst evidence of protection has been linked to improved functional recovery, prosurvival kinase, anti-apoptosis and NO-cGMP. Therefore, we aimed to investigate the effects of dietary RPO supplementation in a cholesterol-enriched diet-induced hyperlipidemic rat model and to investigate the involvement of matrix metalloproteinase 2 (MMP2) inhibition as a possible mechanism of protection. Materials and Methods Male Wistar rats were fed either a standard rat chow diet (Norm) or a 2% cholesterol-enriched diet (Chol) for nine weeks. Additionally, two more groups received the same treatment, however, at the week 4, diet was supplemented with RPO for the last five weeks (Norm+RPO and Chol+RPO), respectively. After the feeding period hearts were isolated, perfused according to Langendorff and subjected to 30 minutes of normothermic global ischaemia followed by two hours of reperfusion. Infarct size was measured by 2,3,5-triphenyltetrazolium chloride staining at the end of reperfusion. Results Cholesterol-enriched diet increased myocardial infarct size from 23.5 ± 3.0% to 37.2 ± 3.6% (p Conclusions For the first time it was shown that dietary RPO supplementation attenuated the increased susceptibility of the hearts in cholesterol fed rats to ischaemia/reperfusion injury. This was shown by reduced infarct size. For the first time we also show that red palm oil supplementation altered pre-ischaemic levels of MMP-2, which may indicate that myocardial MMP2 may be implicated as a possible role player in RPO mediated protection against ischaemia/reperfusion injury in hearts of cholesterol supplemented rats.