Intake of cooked tomato sauce preserves coronary endothelial function and improves apolipoprotein A-I and apolipoprotein J protein profile in high-density lipoproteins》.pdfVIP

ORIGINAL ARTICLES Intake of cooked tomato sauce preserves coronary endothelial function and improves apolipoprotein A-I and apolipoprotein J protein profile in high-density lipoproteins 1 1 GEMMA VILAHUR , JUDIT CUBEDO , TERESA PADRO, LAURA CASANI, GUIOMAR MENDIETA, ALICIA GONZALEZ, and LINA BADIMON BARCELONA, SPAIN Intake of tomatoes has been linked with healthy diets (eg, Mediterranean diet). How- ever, it remains unknown whether tomato intake exerts protective effects on the vasculature. The aim of this study was to determine whether medium-term supple- mentation with cooked tomato sauce (CTS) Mediterranean style (sofrito) attenuates diet-induced coronary endothelial dysfunction in an animal model with clinical impact and explore the mechanisms behind the effects. Pigs (N 5 18) were fed a 10-day hypercholesterolemic diet. Half of the animals were given a supplement of 100 g/d of CTS (21.5 mg lycopene per day). Coronary responses to escalating doses of vasoactive drugs (acetylcholine, calcium ionophore, and sodium nitroprusside) and L-NG-monomethylarginine (endothelial nitric oxide synthase [eNOS] inhibitor) were measured using flow Doppler. In the coronary arteries, we investigated eNOS gene expression and activation, monocyte chemoattractant protein 1 (MCP-1) expression, and oxidative DNA damage. In the circulation, we investigated lipoprotein resistance to oxidation and the differe