Effects of health food from cereal and nata de coco on serum lipids in human

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to evaluate cereals and nata de coco supplementation on the lipid status in 22 subjects with hyperlipidemia. Subjects consisted of eleven men and eleven women aged 32-75 years, and had serum total cholesterol (TC) level of >5.2 mmol/L, serum total triglyceride (TG) level of >1.7 mmol/ L and low density lipoprotein-cholesterol (LDL-c) level of >3.4 mmol/L. The study consisted of four weeks of control and 20 weeks of supplementation period. The subjects were given 15 g of the supplement twice daily for 20 weeks. The daily 30 g supplement consisted of unpolished rice, hulled mung bean, sweet corn, and nata de coco and provided 122.6 kcal, 5.5 g of protein, 0.5 g of fat, 24.1 g of carbohydrate and 2.7 g of dietary fiber. After 20 weeks, the subjects were divided into two groups, according to their dietary compliance, group A: > 90% compliance, and group B: < 90% compliance with the assigned supplement intake. There were 15 subjects in group A, and 7 in group B. Results showed that in group A the mean TG levels at weeks 4, 8, and 16 were significantly different (P<0.05), but no significant differences were observed in TC, LDL-c and HDL-c except that TC level at week 16 was significantly lower than that at week 0 (P<0.05). Thus, the results appeared to indicate that health food from unpolished rice, hulled mung bean, sweet corn and nata de coco may reduce the serum TG and TC in hyperlipidemic patients.

Keywords

• sweet corn
• nata de coco
• hyperlipidemic
• unpolished rice
• mung bean