The Relationship between Plasma Antioxidant Status, Nitrate Levels, and Lipid Profile in Patients with Hypertension and Coronary Heart Disease

In this study, we investigated first, the possible involvement of nitric oxide and antioxidant enzyme levels in the pathogenesis of essential hypertension and second, we determined serum nitrite-nitrate and antioxidant enzyme activities and lipid profiles (total, HDL and LDL cholesterol, tryglyceride) to investigate the relationship between these parameters in atherosclerosis. 13 patients with coronary heart disease, 18 patients with essential hypertension and 16 age-matched healthy subjects were taken into this study. Plasma nitrite, nitrate levels were measured by Griess reaction, erythrocyte superoxide dismutase and catalase activities were determined by the methods of Misra & Fridovich and Aebi, respectively. Serum lipid analysis were performed in the autoanalyzer. We found a decrease in Superoxide dismutase activity (p<0.01) and nitrite and nitrate levels (p<0.05), an increase in total cholesterol, LDL-cholesterol and tryglyceride values of patients with hypertension (p<0.05). There was positive correlation between nitrite and HDL-cholesterol values in same patient group (r=0.467, p<0.05). We found a decrease in SOD activity and nitrate levels (p<0.01) and any significant difference in nitrite and LDL-cholesterol, total cholesterol, tryglyceride levels in patients with coronary heart disease. On the other hand, catalase activities in both groups remained without change. These findings focus the attention to interactions between nitric oxide, antioxidant status and atherogenesis and propose that nitric oxide may be important physiopathologically in essential hypertension and atherosclerotic heart failure.