Protective Effects of Chitosan, Ascorbic Acid and Gymnema Sylvestre Against Hypercholesterolemia in Male Rats

This study was designed to test chitosan and the mixture of chitosan, ascorbic acid and Gymnema sylvestre (10:2:1) as lipid-lowering and the antioxidative activities on hypercholesterolemic rats. The plasma lipid levels, transaminases (ALT and AST), lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) activities, glucose, malondialdehyde (MDA) and whole blood reduced glutathione (GSH), the activities of superoxide dismutase (SOD), glutathione peroxidase (GPx) in erythrocytes and plasma glutathione reductase (GR), glutathione-S-transferase (GST) and catalase (CAT) were examined. The hypercholesterolemia-induced diet was manifested in the elevation of total lipids (TL), total cholesterol (TC), triglycerides (TG), LDL-C levels, ALT, AST, LDH activities and MDA content and depletion of GSH and enzymic antioxidants. Supplementation of hypercholesterolemia-induced diet with three levels of chitosan and three levels of the mixture significantly lowered the plasma levels of TL, TC, TG and LDL-C. ALT, AST and LDH activities slightly decreased in treated groups compared with hypercholesterolemic group (HC). Furthermore, the content of GSH significantly increased while MDA significantly decreased in treated groups compared with HC group. In addition, chitosan and mixture groups improved enzymic antioxidants compared with HC group. In general, the results indicated that, the mixture supplements are better than chitosan. These results suggested that the hypocholesterolemic effect of chitosan and the mixture supplements might be due to their abilities to lower plasma cholesterol level as well as to slow down the lipid peroxidation process and to enhance the antioxidant enzyme activity