Oxidative stress in the metabolic syndrome and the evaluation of the Peroxidation of Leukocytes Index Ratio

Based on the potential protective effects against the onset of metabolic syndrome (Peluso et al. 2014a), functional foods containing probiotics, prebiotics, and/or polyphenols were placed on the market. Improvement of metabolic profile, oxidative stress, and inflammation has been reported also for glucomannan (Sood et al 2008; Bauerova et al. 2008). De Luis et al. (De Luis et al. 2011) pointed out that one of the problems of dietetic therapy is the lack of patient adherence and suggested that one possibility to overcome this problem is to include functional cookies in the diet. In particular, significant decreases of cholesterol and C reactive protein were observed in obese patients after the consumption of an alpha linolenic acid, fructooligosaccharides (FOS), and inulin-enriched cookie (De Luis et al. 2011). Improvements of glycemic control and lipid profile have been reported after consumption of glucomannan-enriched biscuits in subjects with impaired glucose tolerance, reduced high density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol, elevated serum triglycerides, and moderate hypertension (Vuksan et al. 2000) In this pilot study, we aimed to investigate the relationship between the improvement of postprandial dysmetabolism by a functional cookie, covered by dark chocolate and containing glucomannan, inulin, FOS, and Bacillus coagulans strain GanedenBC30 (Jensen et al. 2010), and the PLIR.