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If dietary improvement doesn't lower your cholesterol, try panthetine
If the concentration of LDL in the blood is on the high side, most people try to solve that problem through their diet first. But if that does not work, then what? According to a small human study, there is a nutritional trick that may enhance the effect of a cholesterol-lowering diet: supplementation with pantethine.
Pantethine
Pantethine is a vitamin B5 analogue which, according to small studies, inhibits the enzyme HMG-CoA reductase in the liver in doses of 600-1200 milligrams per day. HMG-CoA reductase plays a key role in the synthesis of cholesterol. As a result, supplementation with a hefty dose of pantethine reduces the concentration of LDL and triglycrides in the blood.
Study
Researchers from the Canadian research company KgK Science [kgkscience.com] experimented with 2 groups of 16 adult subjects, all of whom had elevated cholesterol levels. Both groups followed the Therapeutic Lifestyle Change [TLC] diet.
For 16 weeks, one group took a placebo every day. The other group took 600 [first 8 weeks] or 900 [last 8 weeks] milligrams of pantethine every day.
Sponsor
Japanese Daiichi Fine Chemicals, a producer of pantethine, financed the study. Daiichi has since been taken over by Kyowa Pharma. [kyowa-pharma.co.jp] Three employees of that company worked as co-authors on the study. One of them was the research leader.
Results
The diet lowered the LDL level, supplementation with pantethine enhanced that effect. In the placebo group, the LDL level was 3 percent lower in week 16 than when the experiment began. In the pantethine group, the LDL level dropped by 11 percent.
Conclusion
"This study confirms that pantethine lowers cardiovascular disease risk markers in low to moderate cardiovascular disease risk participants who are candidates for statins according to the National Cholesterol Education Program guidelines", the researchers write. "Compared with placebo, pantethine-treated participants demonstrated significant declines in LDL-C, HDL-C, and total cholesterol levels after 16 weeks of treatment."
"Moreover, unlike statins, which deplete CoQ10 to detrimental levels, both the pantethine and placebo groups significantly increased their CoQ10 levels above baseline."
"This study demonstrated that the Therapeutic Lifestyle Change diet alone did not significantly affect lipid profiles but in conjunction with pantethine supplementation, significantly decreased lipid levels. Supplementation with pantethine may therefore be considered as an optional adjunctive therapy for patients with low to moderate cardiovascular disease risk."
Source:
Vasc Health Risk Manag. 2014 Feb 27;10:89-100.
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