植物甾醇降血脂机制研究进展

Advances in research on hypolipidemic mechanism of phytosterols

高脂血症是心血管疾病的危险因素之一,易引发动脉粥样硬化、冠心病、外周血管疾病、胰腺炎等,也会增加2型糖尿病和脂肪肝的发病率,改善血脂异常可延缓动脉粥样硬化的进程,降低冠心病的风险,是预防和治疗心血管疾病的重要手段。植物甾醇是植物中的天然活性成分,多项研究表明,植物甾醇具有显著的降血脂活性,可以有效地降低血液胆固醇和甘油三酯水平,含有植物甾醇的食品也被用作治疗性饮食,用于改善血脂异常的症状。由于植物甾醇与胆固醇的化学结构比较相似,早期的研究者们认为,植物甾醇的降脂作用是通过竞争性抑制膳食胆固醇在肠道的吸收实现的。随着相关研究的深入,植物甾醇的降脂机制在近年也有了更全面的进展。作者基于PubMed及Web of Science两大数据库,对过去发表的植物甾醇降脂机制相关的文献进行检索,根据检索结果加以整理总结,从降低胆固醇和降低甘油三酯2个方面对其降脂机制进行综述,使植物甾醇在临床上能更合理地应用于改善血脂异常及其引发的疾病中。

Hyperlipidemia,as one of the severe risk factors of cardiovascular disease,could easily trigger atherosclerosis,coronary heart disease,peripheral vascular disease,pancreatitis,etc.,and could also increase the incidence of type 2 diabetes and fatty liver disease.Improving dyslipidemia could slow down the progression of atherosclerosis and reduce the risk of coronary heart disease.This is of great importance for prevention and treatment of cardiovascular disease.Phytosterols are natural active ingredients in plants.Many researches have shown that phytosterols have significant lipid-lowering activity,which could effectively lower blood cholesterol and triglyceride levels.Foods containing phytosterols have been widely used as therapeutic diets for improving dyslipidemia.In the early years,it was believed that the lipid-lowering effect of phytosterols was achieved by competitively inhibiting the absorption of dietary cholesterol in the intestine since phytosterols had similar chemical structures with cholesterol.In further researches in recent years,more progress has been made in the lipid-lowering mechanisms of phytosterols.In this paper,PubMed and Web of Science were used to review the cholesterol-lowering and triglyceride-lowering mechanisms of phytosterols according to the available data published,so as to use phytosterols more rationally in clinical application to improve hyperlipidemia and other induced diseases.