Evaluation of the efficacy of cardiovascular supplement in reducing coronary heart disease (CHD) risk in Enugu, Nigeria

Cardiovascular disease is one of the leading causes of mortality which equals an average of 1 death every 33 seconds as confirmed by statistics from United States National Centre for Health Statistics (NCHS). Sixty healthy subjects within the age range 40 to 75 years (mean, 54. 7+ 3.3), M: F ratio given as 1.4:1 were selected by stratified random sampling for the study. The supplement (Plakman TM) was administrated and the lipid profile at pre and post-treatment determined using standardized laboratory protocol. Data obtained were statistically analyzed and presented in tabular form. Results revealed a statistically significant increase (p ƒ¬0.05) in mean serum HDL cholesterol in the post-treatment relative to pre-treatment level. Conversely, there was a statistically significant decrease in the total cholesterol and LDL cholesterol post-treatment. However, there was no statistically significant change (p. ƒ®0.05) in the VLDL and triglyceride fractions respectively in both sexes. A statistically significant difference (p. ƒ¬0.05) was also reported in the summary estimates involving the ratios TC/HDL-C and LDL-C/HDL-C respectively in both sexes. Thus, the cardiovascular supplement (Plakman TM) could be exploited in significantly lowering the risk of CHD in the study population Keywords: Cardiovascular supplement, Coronary heart disease, Lipoprotein fractions