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Long-term consumption of fermented dairy products over 6 months increases HDL cholesterol

European Journal of Clinical Nutrition volume 56, pages 843–849 (2002)Cite this article

Abstract

Objective: Assessment of the hypocholesterolaemic effect of yoghurt supplemented with Lactobacillus acidophilus 145 and Bifidobacterium longum 913 in women.

Design: The cross-over study consisted of three periods (7 weeks each): first period, control yoghurt for all 29 women; second period, probiotic yoghurt for 18 women, control yoghurt for 11 women; third period, the reverse of that in the second period.

Setting: Department of Nutritional Physiology, Institute of Nutritional Science, Friedrich Schiller University, Jena.

Subjects: Twenty-nine healthy women, aged 19–56 y. Fifteen of these were normocholesterolaemic and 14 women were hypercholesterolaemic.

Intervention: Yoghurt (300 g) daily containing 3.5% fat and starter cultures of Streptococcus thermophilus and L. lactis. Probiotic yoghurt was the control yoghurt enriched with L. acidophilus 145, B. longum 913 and 1% oligofructose (synbiotic).

Results: The mean serum concentration of total cholesterol and the LDL cholesterol was not influenced by the synbiotic (P>0.05). The HDL concentration increased significantly by 0.3 mmol/l (P=0.002). The ratio of LDL/HDL cholesterol decreased from 3.24 to 2.48 (P=0.001).

Conclusions: The long-term daily consumption of 300 g yoghurt over a period of 21 weeks (control and synbiotic) increased the serum concentration of HDL cholesterol and lead to the desired improvement of the LDL/HDL cholesterol ratio.

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Author notes

  1. G Jahreis: Guarantor: G Jahreis.

  2. G Kießling, J Schneider and G Jahreis: Contributors: GK was responsible for analysis of the data and for writing the draft of the manuscript. JS was responsible for the human intervention study. GJ was responsible for design and performance of the study, he obtained funding for the project.

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  1. Friedrich Schiller University, Institute of Nutritional Science, Jena, Germany

    G Kießling, J Schneider & G Jahreis

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  1. G Kießling
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Correspondence to G Jahreis.

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Kießling, G., Schneider, J. & Jahreis, G. Long-term consumption of fermented dairy products over 6 months increases HDL cholesterol. Eur J Clin Nutr 56, 843–849 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.ejcn.1601399

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