Tahere Tofighiyan¹, Akram Kooshki^2,, BiBi Leila Hoseini³, Maryam Mohammadi⁴

Background & Objectives: With regard to probable mechanisms about probiotics effect in cholesterol lowering and since final conclusion about fat-lowering effect of probiotics is not clear; Present study has been conducted to determine effect of probiotics on serum lipid profile level of patients with type II diabetes mellitus. Material and Methods: This double-blind randomized, clinical trial study was done on 44 type-2 diabetic patients, by available sampling. Patients were allocated to either case or control groups by permuted block randomization. Probiotic group received one probiotic tablet and placebo group received one placebo tablet daily for 8 weeks. At baseline and the end of study, 5 ml blood was collected from each patient after a 14-h fasting in order to measure serum lipid profile. Data were analyzed by descriptive and analytic statistics. Results: Demographic parameters, anthropometric and dietary factors were not significantly different between two groups at baseline and the end of week 8. Probiotic intake caused significant decrease in serum total cholesterol (p=0.0001), LDL (p=0.001) and increase serum HDL (p=0.001) in probiotic group. Results showed that observed difference in LDL and HDL between 2 groups was not significant, but serum cholesterol had a significant difference between 2 groups. Conclusions: This study showed that probiotic supplementation is probably effective in improving risk factors for cardiovascular diseases in type 2 diabetes, via serum lipid profile reduction.

probiotics, serum lipids, diabetes mellitus, type 2