Nutraceuticals in Hyperlipidemic Children: a Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

Background: Dyslipidemia is a major risk for cardiovascular diseases. The aim of this study is to review the effects of nutraceuticals to modify lipid disorders in children. Materials and Methods: The literature research was conducted in EMBASE, Medline, PubMed, Scopus, ISI Web of Science, and Cochrane library from 2002 until January 2015. The following keywords were used: dyslipidemia, hyperlipidemia, hypercholesterolemia, dietary intervention, nutraceutical, functional food, herbal treatment, non-chemical treatment, children, adolescents, clinical trial. Results: 13 eligible articles were entered in this study. Consumption of nutraceuticals had significant negative effect sizes (weighted mean differences) for triglycerides (-0.97, 95% CI: -1.49, -0.46), total cholesterol (-0.96, 95%CI: -1.67, -0.26), and low density lipoprotein -cholesterol (-0.54, 95%CI: -0.95, -0.13), it had positive effect size for changes of high density lipoprotein-cholesterol (0.43, 95%CI: 0.04, 0.82) . Conclusion: Findings of this metaanalysis suggest that consumption of nutraceuticals might have beneficial effects on improving dyslipidemia in the pediatric age group.