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Champion Microalgal Forms for Food and Health Applications
Published in Gokare A. Ravishankar, Ranga Rao Ambati, Handbook of Algal Technologies and Phytochemicals, 2019
Chiara Toniolo, Marcello Nicoletti, Paola Del Serrone, Ambati Ranga Rao, Gokare A. Ravishankar
Since the middle of the 1980s Spirulina has been used extensively as food. Presently its popularity as functional food or nutraceutical is well known (Khan et al. 2005). It has been reported that consumption of Spirulina as a diet supplement could afford health benefits in preventing or managing hypercholesterolemia, hyperglycerolemia, certain inflammatory diseases, allergies, cancer, viral infections, diabetes, cardiovascular disease; they also possess hypolipidemia, antioxidant, and anti-inflammatory activities (Gershwin and Belay 2007). Spirulina was reported by the IIMSAM, as early as the mid-70s, as highly nutritional food to fight starvation and malnutrition in the world (Siva Kiran et al. 2015). In consideration of ease of cultivation coupled with nutritional value such as its high content of proteins and aminoacids (Table 5.1), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the European Space Agency (ESA) promoted Spirulina as one of the primary foods during long-term space missions.
Plasma glycerol levels in men with hypertriglyceridemia
Published in Scandinavian Journal of Clinical and Laboratory Investigation, 2021
At Department of Clinical Biochemistry, Aarhus University Hospital, Denmark the plasma triglyceride concentration is like in most other laboratories determined by measurement of total plasma glycerol after hydrolysis of triglycerides into fatty acids and glycerol. In order to evaluate the need for providing a glycerol blank measurement as a supplement to the measurement of plasma triglyceride levels we measured the plasma level of free glycerol in a cohort of 100 adult men with mild to moderate hypertriglyceridemia. This cohort was designed, to increase the chances of identifying individuals with severe hyperglycerolemia causing pseudohypertriglyceridemia. Similar to previous results the frequency distribution of free plasma glycerol followed a log-normal distribution [15] as well as the determined mean free plasma free glycerol level of 123 µmol/L was in same range as previously reported by Stinshoff et al. [15]. The mean plasma free glycerol level found in this study is higher than the <100 umol/L reported in other studies of outpatient cohorts [2,16]. This most likely reflects that this study only investigated the plasma free glycerol level in men with proven hypertriglyceridemia and thus did not include values from healthy individuals. In the study by Jessen et al. [2] an elevated free plasma glycerol level (280–1600 μmol/L) was found in 20 of 419 inpatients, which was ascribed to either parenteral administration of lipids, heparin infusion or critically illness. In our study, the highest plasma level of free glycerol observed was 300 µmol/L, with 99% of the men having a free plasma glycerol level below 228 µmol/L. Our study only included inpatients that were able to visit the blood sampling facility, thus it is unlikely that our cohort includes the group of critically ill patients that was found to have elevated free plasma glycerol levels by Jessen et al. [2]. Moreover, even though the cohort was designed to increase the possibility of identifying men with severe hyperglycerolemia [6], none of the men had plasma levels of free glycerol compatible with GKD.