Effect of Curcuminoids and Natural Plants Extract Mixture on the Cardiovascular System in Rats

ABSTRACT

Antiplatelet aggregation, anticoagulant and lipid-lowering drugs are clinically widely used for secondary preventive purpose in the cardiovascular patients, but there is no primary preventive agents to prevent these diseases. With the aim of developing effective primary agents for cardiovascular diseases, we tried to formulate an optimized mixture of natural plants extract containing Theae sinensis, Camelliae sinensis, Vitis vinifera, Gingko folium and curcuminoids from Curcuma longa and to evaluate its anti-thrombotic and anti-hypercholesterolemic effects in vivo. The inhibitory effect of curcuminoids on vascular smooth muscle cell proliferation and migration were also investigated in vitro. in the animal experiments treated with hyperlipidemic diet, oral treatment of curcuminoids and natural plants extracts mixture (100 mg/kg) into male Sprague Dawley rats for 7 week simultaneously inhibited platelet aggregation as well as improved lipid profile in the blood. Compared to control group, both of curcuminoids-treated and mixture-treated groups revealed significantly decrease of total cholesterol (24.4%, 28.6%), free cholesterol (25.1%, 24.0%), cholesterol ester (14.6%, 29.0%), LDL-cholesterol (27.0%, 32.0%) and triglyceride (15.0%, 31.0%), respectively. However, both groups showed increase of HDL-cholesterol (46.6% and 51.5%) . In particular, atherogenic index of curcuminoids and mixture treatment group was significantly decreased to 47.0% and 56.0%, respectively. Furthermore, oral treatment of curcuminoids and mixture significantly inhibited collagen-induced platelet aggregation (21.1% and 29.1%, respectively), compared to control group. The anti-thrombotic values of mixture was almost similar to that of aspirin treatment (100 mg/kg) group. These results suggest that the oral treatment of curcuminoids-based natural plant extract mixture improved cardiovascular conditions in hyperlipidemic rats.