cholesterol lowering with barley

Doug Skrecky (oberon@vcn.bc.ca)
Tue, 7 Jul 1998 01:07:25 -0700 (PDT)

Authors
Lupton JR. Robinson MC. Morin JL.
Institution
Nutrition Faculty, Texas A&M University, College Station 77843-2471. Title
Cholesterol-lowering effect of barley bran flour and oil.
Source
Journal of the American Dietetic Association. 94(1):65-70, 1994 Jan. Abstract
OBJECTIVE: To compare the effects of adding barley bran flour and a barley oil extract to a fat-modified diet on serum lipids in persons with hypercholesterolemia. DESIGN: The basic design of the study was a randomized, 30-day intervention trial. It included a neutral-fiber control group and a 1-week preintervention period for the collection of baseline data. SUBJECTS: The subjects were 79 men and women with hypercholesterolemia. Subjects had a mean age of 48.2 years, and all completed the study. INTERVENTION: All participants were instructed to follow the National Cholesterol Education Program (NCEP) step 1 diet and were randomly assigned to one of three treatment groups: 20 g added cellulose, 3 g added barley oil extract, or 30 g added barley bran flour. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Total serum cholesterol, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), and very-low-density lipoprotein cholesterol were measured, along with serum triglycerides, before the intervention, at week 1, at week 3, and at the end of the intervention. STATISTICAL ANALYSES PERFORMED: Student's paired t test was used to detect significant changes within each treatment group from baseline to the end of the 30-day intervention. In addition, Pearson's correlation coefficients were used to detect significant correlations between the variables measured. RESULTS: Addition of barley bran flour significantly (P = .0001) decreased total serum cholesterol
(-0.60 mmol/L) as did addition of barley oil (-0.50 mmol/L;
P = .002) after 30 days of intervention. Similarly, LDL-C decreased 6.5% with addition of barley bran flour (P = .036) and 9.2% with addition of barley oil (P = .003). Total serum cholesterol or LDL-C of the cellulose control group did not decrease significantly over the same period. HDL-C decreased significantly in the cellulose control group and the barley bran flour group
(-0.15 mmol/L, P = .012, and -0.15 mmol/L, P = .006, respectively), but not
in the barley oil group. CONCLUSION: We conclude that addition of barley bran flour or barley oil enhances the cholesterol-lowering effect of the NCEP step 1 diet in individuals with hypercholesterolemia.