Consumption of Cuban Policosanol Improves Blood Pressure and Lipid Profile via Enhancement of HDL Functionality in Healthy Women Subjects: Randomized, Double‐Blinded, and Placebo‐Controlled Study

Abstract

Policosanol has been reported to improve blood pressure, lipid profile, and HDL functionality via inhibition of cholesteryl ester transfer protein (CETP) both in vitro and in vivo in zebrafish and human models. However, there are limited reports and randomized, double-blinded trials on policosanol that could advocate the blood pressure-lowering effect in prehypertensive participants. Therefore, we performed in vitro, in vivo, and ex vivo experiments to provide more substantial and concrete data on the blood pressure-lowering effect of policosanol. Consumption of policosanol for 8 weeks enhanced plasma antioxidant activity. In the policosanol group, plasma total cholesterol (TC) and triglyceride (TG) levels were reduced up to 20% and 14%, respectively, and HDL-C level was elevated up to 1.3-fold compared to that at week 0. TG/HDL-C and cholesteryl ester transfer protein (CETP) activities were reduced up to 36% and 20%, respectively. Uptake of oxidized LDL in macrophages was reduced as oxidized species levels were reduced, and HDL2-associated paraoxonase activities were enhanced by 60% compared to those at week 0. Encapsulation of policosanol into reconstituted HDL (PCO-rHDL) enhanced cholesterol efflux activity and insulin secretion capacity. In conclusion, consumption of policosanol for 8 weeks in healthy female subjects resulted in lowered blood pressure and CETP activity via elevation of HDL/apoA-I contents and enhancement of HDL functionalities, including cholesterol efflux and insulin secretion. These functional enhancements of HDL can contribute to the prevention of aging-related diseases, hypertension, and stroke.

Short-Term Consumption of Cuban Policosanol Lowers Aortic and Peripheral Blood Pressure and Ameliorates Serum Lipid Parameters in Healthy Korean Participants: Randomized, Double-Blinded, and Placebo-Controlled Study

“…These outcomes are in good agreement with our recent reports, which showed that consumption of policosanol for 8 or 24 weeks lowered BP and serum TC and LDL-C via CETP inhibition and enhancement of HDL functionality [17,19]. The improvement in the serum lipid profile in the current study correlates well with enhancement of HDL functionality in our previous reports [17,19].…”

Slim Body Weight Is Highly Associated With Enhanced Lipoprotein Functionality, Higher HDL-C, and Large HDL Particle Size in Young Women

“…Augmentation pressure is the gain in aortic pressure above its first systolic push, which is thought to be determined by pressure wave reflection but may be influenced by ventricular ejection aspects. However, the augmentation index, the ratio of augmentation pressure to aortic or central pulse pressure, is widely used as a measure of pressure wave reflection ( 19 , 20 ). Measurements were performed by a technician trained in the technique and blinded to the characteristics of each subject.…”

Possible Health Effects of a Wax Ester Rich Marine Oil

“…However, a recent meta-analysis including 13 Cuban and 9 non-Cuban studies confirmed the efficacy and safety of sugarcane policosanol on dyslipidemia (Gong et al, 2018). In addition, experimental studies with Cuban policosanol in rats (Cho et al, 2018b), as well as clinical studies in healthy Korean subjects (Kim et al, 2017;Cho et al, 2018a;Kim et al, 2018) showed reduced body fat (Kim et al, 2017;Cho et al, 2018a) and improved blood lipid profile (Kim et al, 2017;Cho et al, 2018a;Cho et al, 2018b;Kim et al, 2018). It has been reported that this was due to inhibition of cholesteryl ester transfer protein (Kim et al, 2017).…”