Modern Approaches to the Treatment and Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease: Cholesterol and Beyond
Available: On Demand
Length: 60 minutes
Description
Evidence indicates that risk for cardiovascular disease can be substantially reduced through modulation of numerous aspects of diet, but in particular functional foods or foods containing specific components that reduce cholesterol. Such functional ingredients include soluble fiber, plant sterols and soy. Literature shows that soluble fiber provides several health benefits including improved glucose tolerance, better gut motility, and lowered LDL-cholesterol (LDL-C) levels.
Plant sterols interfere with the intestinal absorption of diet and bile-derived cholesterol. Plant sterols have been shown to lower LDL-C levels by 10-15% in several dozen clinical trials, with very acceptable hedonic qualities. Recent work has shown that plant sterols and exercise produces highly beneficial shifts in HDL/LDL-C ratios, without pharmaceutical intervention.
Health attributes of soy products have also been demonstrated over the past decades, both through provision of functional agents as well as by way of replacing dietary animal products containing saturated fat. In addition to the individual beneficial effects of fiber, plant sterols and soy, such ingredients can be provided in combination to realize additive actions. Recent data suggest that using a portfolio approach, where these three functional ingredients were provided simultaneously, resulted in 28-35% reductions in LDL-C levels, reductions similar in magnitude to that seen with use of first generation statin drugs.
Accordingly, use of dietary functional ingredients alone or in combination represents a prudent non-pharmaceutical strategy to cardiovascular disease risk management.
Speaker:
Peter J. Jones, recently named Canada Research Chair in Functional Foods and Nutrition, is director of the Richardson Centre for Functional Foods and Nutraceuticals at the University of Manitoba. Jones' main appointment is in the department of food science with a cross appointment in human nutritional sciences. Following graduate and undergraduate work in some of North America's leading academic institutions, he spent several years on faculty with the division of human nutrition at University of British Columbia. Jones was director of the School of Dietetics and Human Nutrition at McGill University from 1994-1999; in addition to being a professor in the school and holding a cross-appointment in the department of medicine until 2005.
Currently, he serves as president of the Danone Institute for Nutrition in Canada and immediate past president of the Canadian Society for Nutritional Sciences. He serves as chairman of the Functional Foods and Nutraceuticals Board of the Vancouver-based Forbes Medi-tech group. He also has sat on the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, World Health Organization, and United Nations University (FAO/WHO/UNU) expert consultant Panel for Energy and Protein Requirements in Human Nutrition.
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