Effects of a dietary intervention with lacto-ovo-vegetarian and Mediterranean diets on apolipoproteins and inflammatory cytokines: results from the CARDIVEG study.

Background: Apolipoproteins have been recently proposed as novel markers of cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk. However, evidence regarding effects of diet on apolipoproteins is limited.

Aim: To compare the effects of Mediterranean diet (MD) and lacto-ovo vegetarian diet (VD) on apolipoproteins and traditional CVD risk factors in participants with low-to-moderate CVD risk.

Methods: Fifty-two participants (39 women; 49.1 ± 12.4 years), followed MD and VD for 3 months each. Medical and dietary information was collected at the baseline. Anthropometric parameters and blood samples were obtained at the beginning and the end of interventions.

Results: MD and VD resulted in significant improvement in anthropometric and lipid profiles. Both diets led to a reduction in most of the inflammatory parameters. As for apolipoproteins, a significant change was observed for ApoC-I after VD (+ 24.4%; p = 0.020). MD led to a negative correlation between ApoC-III and carbohydrates (R = - 0.29; p = 0.039) whereas VD between ApoD and saturated fats (R = - 0.38; p = 0.006). A positive correlation emerged after VD between HDL and ApoD (R = 0.33; p = 0.017) and after MD between plasma triglycerides and ApoC-I (R = 0.32; p = 0.020) and ApoD (R = 0.30; p = 0.031). IL-17 resulted to be positively correlated with ApoB after MD (R = 0.31; p = 0.028) and with ApoC-III after VD (R = 0.32; p = 0.019). Subgroup analysis revealed positive effects on apolipoproteins from both diets, especially in women, individuals older than 50 years-old or with < 3 CVD risk factors.

Conclusions: Both diets seem to improve CVD risk, however, MD showed a greater positive effect on apolipoproteins in some subgroups, thus suggesting how diet may influence new potential markers of CVD risk.

Trial Registration: registered at clinicaltrials.gov (identifier: NCT02641834) on December 2015.