Beneficial impact of pork dry-cured ham consumption on blood pressure and cardiometabolic markers in individuals with high cardiovascular risk

Abstract Funding Acknowledgements Type of funding sources: Public grant(s) – National budget only. Main funding source(s): Fundación Séneca de la Región de Murcia through the project “Jovenes Líderes en Investigación" RETOS-COLABORACIÓN (Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología. Background Evidence suggests that bioactive-peptides reduce hypertension and affect certain metabolic pathways. Methods Fifty-four volunteers with stage 1-hypertension and/or hypercholesterolemia and/or basal glucose >100 mg/dL were recruited and randomized to particular pork dry-cured ham (treatment) and cooked-ham (placebo) products for 2.5 months. Bioactive-peptides composition and enzyme inhibitory activities of both particular meat products were characterized. Treatment comparisons for the main effects were made using a 2 (treatment) × 2 (times) repeated measures minus the effect of cooked-ham. Results 24h mean systolic and diastolic pressures decreased up to 2.4 mmHg in the dry-cured ham period (p=0.0382 y p=0.0233, respectively) as well as the number of systolic pressure measures > 135 mmHg (p=0.0070). Total cholesterol levels also decreased significantly after dry-cured ham intake (p=0.049). No significant differences were observed between the two treatments for basal glucose, HOMA-IR index and insulin levels (p>0.05). However, significant rise of ghrelin level was observed, while leptin plasma values slightly decreased (treatment effect, p=0.0350 and p=0.0528, respectively). Conclusions This study suggested the beneficial effects of regular bioactive-peptides consumption on the improvement of systolic/diastolic blood pressures and emphasized the potentially regulation of ghrelin/leptin levels which provides new therapeutic opportunities for metabolic disorders in the cardiovascular primary prevention.