Effect of consuming ground beef of differing monounsaturated fatty acid content on atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease risk factors in healthy men

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2009-05-15

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Abstract

Atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD) is currently the most common cause of death in the United States. Some dietary factors contribute importantly to ASCVD and other factors can reduce risk of ASCVD. Oleic acid is a monounsaturated fatty acid (MUFA). Dietary patterns in which oleic acid contributes to a majority of dietary fatty acids are associated with reduced ASCVD risk. These beneficial effects are due to MUFA-induced lipoprotein profile changes such as decreases in low density lipoprotein (LDL) and increases in high density lipoprotein (HDL). LDL oxidation plays a central role in atherosclerosis development as it both initiates and propagates atherosclerosis. HDL is anti-atherogenic as it can attenuate LDL oxidation. HDLs are a class of diverse lipoprotein that varies in protein and enzymatic composition. The paraoxonase (PON) family of enzymes, especially PON1, is primarily expressed in the liver; PON activity in the circulatory system is associated with HDL. Both PON and HDL have been documented to be anti-atherogenic. Other factors such as homocysteine and C-reactive protein (CRP) can also be considered risk factors for ASCVD. However, studies of risk factors in healthy men who consume ground beef with a different content of MUFA are lacking; hence, no conclusive evidence has established whether consuming a high amount of MUFA in the form of ground beef alters the development of atherosclerosis. The overall purpose of this study was to investigate whether the provision of ground beef with a fractionally higher MUFA content could lower or improve several ASCVD risk factors in men who consume ground beef. These risk factors include the metabolic indices of glucose, insulin and homeostasis model assessment (HOMA), inflammation risk factors of CRP and homocysteine and anti-risk factor of paraoxonase. The concentration of homocysteine was determined spectrophotometrically following separation by high pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC). Enzyme-linked imminosorbent assay kits that measured the CRP and insulin concentration in plasma. The significance of the results was determined by subjecting the data to ANOVA using the general linear model for repeated measurement (P<0.05). From this study, it can be concluded that MUFA has a beneficial effect of lowering risks as determined by metabolic indices and lipoprotein profile. Moreover, our study showed that different concentrations of MUFA in ground beef has no effect on PON1 activity, but that increased beef consumption generally reduces PON1 in association with increases in homocysteine concentration while improving indicators of glucose tolerance.

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