Lipid profile and oxidative stress status in vegetarians

Objectives: To investigate the lipid profile and oxidative stress status in vegetarians and non-vegetarians.Methodology: Fifty healthy volunteered adults, 25 vegetarians and 25 non-vegetarians (meat eaters) ages 20-50 Years from Babcock University community were recruited for this study. Venous blood sample was collected pre meal and two hours post-prandial for biochemical assay. We assayed for the plasma levels of total cholesterol, triglyceride, LDL-cholesterol, HDL-cholesterol, protein content, superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT), glutathione s-transferase (GST), reduced glutathione (GSH). Data collected were subjected to statistical analysis using the Student s t-test and One way ANOVA with the aid of SPSS for windows version 14.0. P 0.05 was considered statistically significant.Results: Lipid profile analysis showed non-vegetarians to be significantly higher (P 0.05) in total cholesterol, triglycerides, LDL-cholesterol and HDL-cholesterol than vegetarians respectively. Plasma protein concentration was significantly higher (P 0.05) in vegetarians (1.23 ± 0.29; 1.22 ± 0.18) than non-vegetarians (0.83 ± 0.09; 0.84 ± 0.17) in pre and post meal respectively. Furthermore, plasma superoxide dismutase (0.25 ± 0.72; 0.35 ± 1.60) and catalase activities (0.04 ± 0.00; 0.01 ± 0.27) were significantly reduced (P 0.05) in vegetarians than SOD (0.93 ± 1.80; 0.63 ± 1.52) and CAT (0.08 ± 0.24; 0.02 ± 0.05) in non-vegetarians in pre and post meal respectively. More so, non-vegetarians expressed a higher level of reduced glutathione (0.05 ± 0.00) post meal than vegetarians (0.02 ± 0.00). Glutathione S-transferase activity was found to be higher in vegetarians (460.28 ± 44.77) than non-vegetarians (100.61 ± 79.28) after meal. Conclusion: Vegetarians may have lower lipid and oxidative stress status than non-vegetarians