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Statins are a class of lipid-lowering drugs commonly used in the prevention of cardiovascular diseases. However, statin therapy presents many limitations, which have led to an increased interest in non-drug therapies, such as probiotics, to improve blood cholesterol levels. Indeed, probiotic strains such as Lactobacillus acidophilus have been found to improve blood lipid profiles, especially in reducing total cholesterol and LDL-C levels. In this study, we established a high-cholesterol rat model and studied the effect of Lactobacillus acidophilus administration alone or in conjunction with rosuvastatin. We were able to show that indeed Lactobacillus exerts a cholesterol-lowering effect. Additionally, we observed that when administered together, rosuvastin and Lactobacillus exert a combined cholesterol-lowering effect. Altogether, our data advocate for the possibility of establishing probiotics as non-drug supplements for the treatment of hypercholesterolemia.
Wang et al. (Thu,) studied this question.