Background: Hypercholesterolemia is one of the risk factors of cardiovascular diseases. It affects general health and increases cardiovascular mortality rate. Diet with high cholesterol increases LDL that, inturn, decrease LDL receptors activity in liver. Oxidation of vessel wall lipoproteins increases development of atherosclerosis. Several evidences suggest that antioxidants consumption decreases hypercholesterolemia. This study evaluates the effect of vitamin C supplementation on blood cholesterol level in high cholesterol-fed rats.

Materials & Methods: This work was done on 30 male Wistar rats with a mean weight of 250-300 gr. They were divided into 3 groups of ten. The animals were maintained under controlled conditions (i.e. temperature: 24 ± 2˚C, dark-light cycle: 12-12 hr) and with free alless to food and water. The basal diet included wheat, corn, soybean, methionine, lysine and mixtures of mineral and vitamins. The control group received only a basic diet. Two test groups received one percent cholesterol (Chol) and next group received vitamin C supplementation (200 mg/kg in dry matter of diet) for one month. The one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) followed by the Tukey multiple comparisons were used to analyze data.

Results: Evaluation TC, LDL, HDL, VLDL and TG concentrations showed that the concentrations of TC, LDL, and TG (not HDL and VLDL) in Chol group were significantly greater than those in control group (p<0.05). In contrast to Chol group, vitamin C prevented LDL (p<0.05), TC (p<0.05), VLDL and TG elevation while increased HDL amount.

Conclusion: Vitamin C supplementation prevented changes in LDL, TC, VLDL and TG of Vitamin C while it increased HDL amount. This effect may be related to antioxidant and inhibitory effects of vitamin C on lipoproteins synthesis pathway.