Articles published by the Departments of Medicinal Chemistry and Natural Products, Pharmacy, Cardiology and Physiological Sciences of many Israeli, Polish and Singaporean Universities claim that the bioactive principles of yellow and pink grapefruits would significantly decrease the levels of triglycerides and consequently of cholesterol. Pink grapefruits appear to contain a high percentage of active ingredients with higher antioxidant potential than yellow grapefruits.
To prove this hypothesis, several studies have been performed, including one on a series of patients aged 39 to 72 years with hyperlipidemia who underwent coronary artery surgery. These people were divided into three equal groups and fed different diets for 30 days. One group regularly ate white grapefruit, the other ate pink grapefruit, and the third (control group) did not eat grapefruit. During these 30 days, the daily intake of fresh pink or white grapefruit was gradually increased.
The researchers had obviously taken care to measure the serological levels of triglycerides, lipoproteins, cholesterol and antioxidants. They repeated the analysis after the 30 days of the "grapefruit" diet and the results observed are very telling.
Cholesterol levels decreased by 15.5% in the pink grapefruit group and by 7.6% in the white grapefruit group. As for blood lipoproteins, they decreased by 20.3% for the 1st group and by 10.7% for the 2th, as for triglycerides, they decreased by 17.2% and by 5.6% for the 2 above-mentioned groups, respectively.
However, no change in the rate of anything was observed in the control group.
In conclusion, fresh pink grapefruit contains significantly higher amounts of bioactive principles with considerable and much higher antioxidant potential than those of yellow grapefruit. Thus, a diet rich in fresh pink grapefruit positively influences blood lipid levels, but especially triglycerides and antioxidant activity.
So if you suffer from high cholesterol, hyperlipidemia, high triglycerides, atherosclerosis or coronary problems, consider adding fresh pink grapefruit to your diet. If you don't have it, remember that the best therapy is prevention, so eat pink grapefruits too.
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