Publications by authors named "Marianne Raff"

Background: There is considerable interest in dairy products from low-input systems, such as mountain-pasture grazing cows, because these products are believed to be healthier than products from high-input conventional systems. This may be due to a higher content of bioactive components, such as phytanic acid, a PPAR-agonist derived from chlorophyll. However, the effects of such products on human health have been poorly investigated.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Despite the high content of palmitic acid, palm olein has been shown to have a neutral effect on plasma cholesterol concentrations when compared with olive oil, which is suggested to be attributable to palmitic acid in the sn-1 and sn-3 position. In contrast, palmitic acid is in the sn-2 position in lard.

Objective: The objective was to investigate the effects of a diet rich in palm olein, fractionated palm oil, olive oil, and lard on plasma blood lipids, inflammatory markers, glucose, and insulin.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Phytanic acid produced in ruminants from chlorophyll may have preventive effects on the metabolic syndrome, partly due to its reported RXR and PPAR- α agonist activity. Milk from cows fed increased levels of green plant material, contains increased phytanic acid concentrations, but it is unknown to what extent minor increases in phytanic acid content in dairy fat leads to higher circulating levels of phytanic acid in plasma of the consumers.

Objective: To investigate if cow feeding regimes affects concentration of plasma phytanic acid and risk markers of the metabolic syndrome in human.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Contrary to other long chain saturated fatty acids (SFA), fats high in stearic acid do not raise plasma cholesterol concentrations, however, a slight elevation in inflammatory markers, plasma fibrinogen and interleukin-6 (IL-6), has been observed in the fasting state. The effect of stearic acid on inflammation in the postprandial state has not yet been reported. We conducted a single blind crossover, randomized, postprandial study to compare the effects of a fat load of cocoa butter high in stearic acid and olive oil in ten healthy women.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Isomers of conjugated linoleic acids (CLA) reduce fat mass (FM) and increase insulin sensitivity in some, but not all, murine studies. In humans, this effect is still debatable. In this study, we compared the effect of 2 CLA supplements on total and regional FM assessed by dual energy X-ray absorptiometry, changes in serum insulin and glucose concentrations, and adipose tissue (AT) gene expression in humans.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

A mixture of trans-10, cis-12 (t10,c12) and cis-9, trans-11 (c9,t11) conjugated linoleic acid (CLA mixture) reduced atherosclerosis in animals, thus the effect of these isomers on endothelial dysfunctions leading to inflammation and atherosclerosis is of interest. We gave 75 healthy postmenopausal women a daily supplement of 5.5 g of oil rich in either CLA mixture, an oil rich in the naturally occurring c9,t11 CLA (CLA milk), respectively, or olive oil for 16 wk in a double-blind, randomized, parallel intervention study.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Intake of conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) has been demonstrated to beneficially affect risk markers of atherosclerosis and diabetes in rats. CLA is naturally found in milk fat, especially from cows fed a diet high in oleic acid, and increased CLA intake can occur concomitantly with increased milk fat intake. Our objective was to investigate the effect of CLA as part of a diet rich in butter as a source of milk fat on risk markers of atherosclerosis, inflammation, diabetes type II, and lipid peroxidation.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The objective of this study was to examine the effect on blood pressure (BP) and isobaric arterial elasticity (AE), as a measure of arterial health, of a commercial mixture of conjugated linoleic acids (CLA) and of milk fat produced through livestock feeding to have a high content of vaccenic acid (VA). Healthy young men (n = 60) with a BMI of 22.5 +/- 2 kg/m2 (mean +/- SD) participated in this double-blind, randomized, 5-wk, parallel intervention study.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Evidence suggests that ruminant trans fatty acids (FAs), such as vaccenic acid, do not increase the risk of ischemic heart disease (IHD). However, the effects of ruminant trans FAs on risk markers of IHD have been poorly investigated.

Objective: The objective was to investigate the effect of butter with a naturally high content of vaccenic acid and a concomitantly higher content of monounsaturated FAs on classic and novel risk markers of IHD.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

A PHP Error was encountered

Severity: Notice

Message: fwrite(): Write of 34 bytes failed with errno=28 No space left on device

Filename: drivers/Session_files_driver.php

Line Number: 272

Backtrace:

A PHP Error was encountered

Severity: Warning

Message: session_write_close(): Failed to write session data using user defined save handler. (session.save_path: /var/lib/php/sessions)

Filename: Unknown

Line Number: 0

Backtrace: