Nutraceutical in Cardiovascular Primary Prevention
Status:
Completed
Trial end date:
2017-12-02
Target enrollment:
Participant gender:
Summary
Nutraceuticals have attracted interest as possible approach to be associated with lifestyle
changes for lowering plasma cholesterol levels in patients with moderate
hypercholesterolemia. Ruscica and colleagues showed that a 8-weeks treatment with a
nutraceutical combination containing red yeast rice extract, berberine, policosanol,
astaxanthin, coenzyme Q10, and folic acid was able to reduce significantly total cholesterol
(-12.8%) and low-density lipoprotein-cholesterol (-21.1%) [11]. These nutraceutical compounds
exert their lipid-lowering effect through different ways, like the inhibition of the
hydroxymethylglutaryl coenzyme A (CoA) enzyme, increasing the hepatic expression of low
density lipoprotein (LDL) receptor and the LDL degradation via enhanced hepatic binding and
internalization. In addition, they up regulate the numbers and function of circulating
endothelial progenitor cells increasing nitric oxide (NO) production. The purpose of the
present study was to assess the effectiveness of CARDIOVIS COLESTEROLO 3 mg (containing red
rice fermented with Monascus purpureus titrated with 3% monacolin K, hydrol mixture of olive
fruit titrated with vitamin E, Coenzyme Q10 and polymethoxyflavones) in terms of cholesterol,
endothelial and inflammatory parameters reduction.