Effects of diets rich in ghee or olive oil on cardiometabolic risk factors in healthy adults: a two-period, crossover, randomised trial

Abstract

This study aimed to evaluate the cardiovascular health-related effects of consuming ghee in the usual diet. Thirty healthy men and women were studied in a free-living outpatient regimen. The participants were instructed for the isocaloric inclusion of ghee or olive oil in their diets for 4 weeks using a randomized crossover design. At the end of run-in (baseline), 2-week wash-out, and interventions, fasting blood samples were drawn. In addition, 2-h postprandial blood samples were collected after ingestion of a meal containing olive oil or ghee at week 4 of each dietary intervention. Body weight was not different between the two interventions. Compared to the olive oil, the diet with ghee increased fasting plasma apolipoprotein-B (apo B) (0.09, 95% CI 0.02 to 0.17 g/L, p= 0.018) and non-high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (non-HDL-C) (0.53, 95% CI 0.01 to 1.05 mmol/L, p= 0.046) and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol did not differ significantly between diet groups (0.29, 95% CI –0.05 to 0.63 mmol/L, p= 0.092), but had no significant effect on total cholesterol/HDL-C ratio (0.75, 95% CI −0.24 to 1.74 mmol/L, p= 0.118). No significant difference was observed in fasting as well as 2-h postprandial plasma triacylglycerol, glucose, insulin, and plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 concentrations. This study showed that ghee which is predominantly saturated fats had an increasing effect on plasma apo B and non-HDL-C compared to olive oil, adding further evidence to the existing recommendations to replace dietary fats high in SFA with dietary fats high in unsaturated fats to reduce cardiovascular disease risk.

Is There More to Olive Oil than Healthy Lipids?

“…The diet that included ghee increased the fasting plasma Apo-B and non-HDL cholesterol. Despite the nonsignificant differences between the two groups on LDL-C, this study emphasizes the recommendation of replacing SFA with unsaturated fats to decrease the risk of CVD [ 87 ].…”

“…The potential cardioprotective benefits of OO consumption have been demonstrated in several studies and are summarized in Table 2 [ 52 , 53 , 54 , 55 , 56 , 57 , 58 , 59 , 60 , 61 , 62 , 63 , 64 , 65 , 66 , 67 , 68 , 69 , 70 , 71 , 72 , 73 , 74 , 75 , 76 , 77 , 78 , 79 , 80 , 81 , 82 , 83 , 84 , 85 , 86 , 87 , 88 , 89 ].…”

Impact of saturated compared with unsaturated dietary fat on insulin sensitivity, pancreatic β-cell function and glucose tolerance: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized, controlled trials

“…More detailed information on study selection can be found on the PRISMA flowchart (Figure 1). In the remaining studies, compliance was ascertained by dietary records in 3 studies [54,59,63] and by supervised consumption of most meals in 1 [74].…”

“…The possibility of taking into account the within-patient correlation effect in crossover studies was explored by seeking the information of statistics difference between diets. All but 2 [52][53][54] of the included crossover studies in this meta-analysis did not report any variability of the effect difference or any statistics with paired comparisons to derive the measure. In this case, diets were considered independent of each other.…”

Health benefits of ghee: Review of Ayurveda and modern science perspectives

“…High fat along with carbohydrate rich diet also resulted in development of metabolic syndrome and negatively impacted the lipid profile in glucose-intolerant mice [ 90 ]. A recently conducted two-period crossover randomized trial indicated that ghee consumption had a more significant impact on increasing apo B and non-HDL-cholesterol levels compared to olive oil and may increase the risk of CVDs [ 91 ]. However, all these studies have small sample sizes and are short duration and these results have to be looked at with caution.…”