Vegetarian diets are correlated with a reduced risk of developing cardiovascular disease and comprisea great variety of bioactive compounds, including hydroxycinnamic acid derivatives. Therefore, thisstudy aimed to identify dietary hydroxycinnamic acid derivatives that may alter two important factorsrelated to the development of cardiovascular disease, namely, tocopherol (T) and cholesterol (C)concentrations in the body. The effects of caffeic acid (CA), chlorogenic acid (CGA), and ferulic acid(FA) on
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-T,
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-T, and C levels in blood plasma, liver, and lungs were investigated after thesecompounds had been fed to rats for 4 weeks at concentrations of 2 g/kg in semisynthetic diets. Noneof the regimens affected weight gain, feed intake, or absolute weights of livers and lungs, althoughCA increased the liver weight relative to the body weight (
P < 0.05). CA- and CGA-fed animalsshowed a tendency toward sparing vitamin E in all tissues, but statistical significance was obtainedonly for
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-T in the liver of CA-fed animals (
P < 0.005) and for
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-T in the lungs of CGA-treated rats(
P < 0.05). CGA supplementation reduced concentrations of lipids in the lung tissue (
P < 0.05).
CAand CGA elevated the concentrations of C in liver tissue and lipids to a similar extent, but only CAdecreased the ratio of high-density lipoprotein C to total C in blood plasma (
P < 0.05 for all effects).Animals eating FA showed T and C values comparable to those in the control group. In conclusion,this study demonstrates that dietary caffeic and chlorogenic acid may elevate tocopherols andcholesterol in vivo.Keywords: Cholesterol; hydroxycinnamic acids; rats; tocopherols