Increasing vegetable intake 400 g/day to control body weight and lipid profile in overweight hyperlipidemia menopausal women.

Abstract

Background: Indonesia suffers growing health problems such as obesity, diabetes, and other metabolic syndromes with dietary habit as one of risk factors. To control the lipid and glycaemic profile, high fibre intake has been recommended. This study administered 400g/day vegetable intake with its fiber contents and observed the effects in lipid profile and glycaemic control.Design: A parallel study of 30 pairs of menopausal women match paired in overweight, menopause, hyperlipidaemia, age, etc randomly divided into two groups (vegetable and control). The baseline data obtained from questionnaire and preliminary bloodwithdrawn of consented participants, then matched the characteristics included the results of lipid profile and glycated albumin. The administration was conducted for 21days by providing 400g/day of vegetable to the vegetable group subjects. Nutrition assessments were conducted at the baseline, middle, and final period. The data were analysed by using the unpaired and paired t-test.Results: Significant results (p<0.05) were seen in biochemical variables in the lipid profile of total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, and HDL cholesterol and body weight and BMI within the vegetable group. Significant results for the same variables were shown between vegetable and control group at the final data (p<0.05). The nutrition assessments result showed significances (p<0.05) within vegetable group and between two groups on the final data. After 21 days, significant decreases were found on the intakes of energy, lipids, carbohydrates (p<0.05), while vegetable intake and fiber intake showed significant increases (p<0.05).Conclusion: These data suggest that maintaining a healthy diet of 400g/d vegetable can be effective in weight management and lipid profile control.Significance for public healthGrowing health problems in Indonesia in non-communicable diseases increases awareness on how to prevent the diseases. Despite the government movements to improve healthy lifestyle habits by encouraging healthy movements for daily life, it doesn’t show any favorable impacts on Indonesian health, especially when non-communicable disease prevalence tends to increase years by years. One of the movement encouragements is to adapt more vegetable consumption in one’s daily life in the hope of improving the health quality of the people. However, there is limited number of studies on vegetable intake and its effects on health and also how it can be implemented on society. This study may be the first study on vegetable consumption and its effect on health in Indonesia, in the hope of its benefit to be adjusted on larger population in Indonesia.