Premium
Can a fruit and vegetable derived supplement, rich in vitamin‐C, modulate cIMT and FMD measurements in overweight and obese individuals over 12 weeks?
Author(s) -
Sayegh Marietta,
Tsiountsioura Melina,
Ray Sumantra
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
the faseb journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.709
H-Index - 277
eISSN - 1530-6860
pISSN - 0892-6638
DOI - 10.1096/fasebj.30.1_supplement.lb369
Subject(s) - overweight , medicine , placebo , brachial artery , intima media thickness , obesity , vitamin d and neurology , carotid arteries , cardiology , pathology , blood pressure , alternative medicine
Background and Aim Cardiovascular disease has a multifactorial aetiology. Although there is evidence that dietary intake plays an important role, few studies have focused on the effect of fruit and vegetable consumption on early markers of vascular function particularly in overweight/obese. This is important to investigate given the suggestion that diet may mitigate vascular risk arising from excess adiposity. We investigated whether taking vitamin‐C rich fruit and vegetable extracts over 12 weeks can improve such biomarkers compared with placebo in overweight/obesity. Methods This was a double‐blind, randomised, placebo‐controlled trial that included overweight and obese but otherwise healthy participants. They were randomly allocated to one of two groups; active supplementation or placebo taken twice daily for 12 weeks while both groups were given the “5‐A‐Day” dietary advice. Carotid intima media thickness (cIMT) was measured from both left and right carotid arteries using 7.5 MHz linear array transducer. Flow mediated dilatation (FMD) was assessed from the right brachial artery using high‐resolution ultrasound and computerised edge detection system (FMD studio, Quipu srl, Pisa, Italy). Results Owing to normal distribution of outcome measures we used a t‐test to compare cIMT differences within the 2 groups (Δ A =0.015 ± 0.098 and Δ B =0.003 ± 0.048) and between groups (Δ A‐B = 0.008). No statistically significant differences were found between low (Group A) and high (Group B) vitamin C consumers (p = 0.512 and p=0.743 respectively) or within the groups (p=0.645). Similar analyses were performed for FMD. The within group differences were Δ A =−10.4 ± 25 and Δ B = −2.07 ± 8.9 whereby Group A was found to show statistically significant change (p = 0.027, 95% CI: −19.53 – −1.25). A t‐test was also performed to compare FMD differences between the two groups (Δ A‐B = −8.31964 with p=0.100). Conclusion Based on these preliminary analyses of breaking results, it would appear that whilst the vitamin‐C rich fruit and vegetable supplementation did not significantly improve either FMD or cIMT, there was a slight worsening of FMD (with a similar trend for cIMT based on clinical significance of change) in those with lower vitamin‐C exposure. This may suggest that deleterious vascular effects owing to excess adiposity which may be mitigated in part by consumption of fruit and vegetables. Further analyses including correlation with a panel of additional biomarkers are to be conducted before firm conclusions can be drawn. Support or Funding Information NSA funded the above study 1 Demographics of participantsValues Group AMean ± SD Group BMean ± SDMales (N) 18 12 Females (N) 21 28 Age (yrs) 46.7 ± 9.8 45.2 ± 8.8 BMI (kg/m 2 ) 29.02 ± 2.62 29.638 ± 2.68 Vitamin C (μmol/litre) TV1 66.6 ± 17.4 60.2 ± 18.8 TV2 64.6 ± 19.6 76.5 ± 16.4