Latin-American trial of orlistat for weight loss and improvement in glycaemic profile in obese diabetic patients.

AIM: To determine if obese non-insulin-dependent diabetic patients lose more weight when treated for 24 weeks (6 months) with orlistat (120 mg t.i.d.), in conjunction with a hypocaloric diet plus behavioural counselling, than when treated by placebo (t.i.d.) plus similar instructions. The secondary objectives were to evaluate the effects on glucose profile and to determine the tolerability and safety of orlistat. DESIGN: Double-blind, parallel, randomized, placebo-controlled, multicentre study. SUBJECTS: Obese, non-insulin-dependent diabetic patients, aged 18-70 years old, with BMI > 27 kg/m2, evaluated at 10 Latin-American centres, in five countries. EFFICACY AND TOLERABILITY MEASUREMENTS: After screened, eligible patients passed by a 2-week placebo run-in period receiving a hypocaloric diet. On day 0, patients were randomized to orlistat or placebo for 24 weeks. At each visit, body weight, blood pressure and waist circumference were measured. At the screening visit, baseline visit (week 0), and at weeks 8, 16 and 24, a central laboratory was in charge of measuring fasting glucose and insulin, HbA1c, postprandial glucose and insulin, fasting total cholesterol, HDL-cholesterol, LDL-cholesterol, triglycerides, and postprandial triglycerides. Other safety laboratory assessments were measured locally at the screening visit, baseline visit and at the end of the study. Adverse events were assessed at each visit from baseline. RESULTS: After 24 weeks of treatment, the orlistat group lost an average of 4.7% of initial body weight vs. 3.0% in the placebo group (p = 0.0003). A greater weight loss was achieved in the orlistat compared with the placebo group (4.24 +/- 0.23 vs. 2.58 +/- 1.46 kg, p = 0.0003). Almost twice as many patients receiving orlistat (30% vs. 17%) lost > or = 5% of initial body weight (p = 0.003). Orlistat treatment plus diet compared to placebo plus diet was associated with significant improvement in glycaemic control, as reflected in decreases in HbA1c (p = 0.04), fasting plasma glucose (p = 0.036) and postprandial glucose (p = 0.05). Orlistat-treated patients had a mean decrease in glucose levels of 1.00 +/- 0.34 mmol/l [3.7%] vs. 0.01 +/- 0.30 mmol/l for placebo group, at week 24 and an absolute decrease of HbA1c of 0.61 +/- 0.15 vs. a decrease of 0.22 +/- 0.14% in the placebo group. Orlistat therapy also resulted in significantly greater improvements than placebo in lipid profile, with reductions in total cholesterol (p = 0.0001) and LDL-cholesterol (p = 0.002). Mild to moderate transient gastrointestinal events were reported, mainly with orlistat treatment, but their association with withdrawal from the study was low. CONCLUSION: Orlistat is a useful and an effective therapy in obese diabetic patients, promoting clinically significant weight loss and improved glycaemic control and lipid profile.

Discrimination of Brazilian arabica green coffee samples by chlorogenic acid composition.

Coffee is basically consumed for the pleasure given by its taste and aroma, that is, the quality and acceptance of the coffee beverage are directly related to its sensorial characteristics. Thus, nowadays coffee quality is basically evaluated by sensorial analysis. However, together with this kind of analysis, it should be important to have available more objective chemical methods to assess coffee quality. One possible approach could be based on the analysis of chlorogenic acids (CGA), since they are considered precursors of coffee flavour and pigments during roasting. In the present work, high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) analysis of chlorogenic acids was applied to six different Brazilian arabica green coffee samples which were previously characterised by sensorial analysis. The results showed the potential to correlate the chemical data, evaluated by the Principal Components Analysis (PCA) statistical method, with sensorial analysis in order to discriminate the quality of the samples. It was observed that the 3,4-dicaffeoylquinic (3,4-diCQA) and 3,5-dicaffeoylquinic (3,5-diCQA) isomers are very important for grouping the coffees into good and bad samples.

Discrimination of Brazilian arabica green cofee samples by chlorogenic acid composition

O café é consumido basicamente pelo prazer que seu sabor e aroma proporcionam, isto é, a qualidade e aceitacao da bebida do café estao diretamente relacionadas com suas características sensoriais. Por conseguinte, atualmente a avaliacao da qualidade dessa bebida é realizada através de análise sensorial. Entretanto, é óbvia a importância do desenvolvimiento de novas metodologias capazes de diferenciar, de forma prática e objetiva, os diferentes tipos de café. Nesse sentido, tem sido crescente os esforcos a fim de correlacionar a qualidade do café com o conteúdo dos chamados ácidos clorogenicos (ACG) do café, uma vez que esse grupo de compostos apresenta importância reconhecida com relacao á farmacao de pigmentos, sabor e aroma nesse produto. No presente trabalho foram obtidos, por cromatografía líquida de alta eficiencia (CLAE), os perfis dos diferentes isômeros dos ácidos clorogênicos de seis asmostras de cafés verdes brasileiros da espécie Coffea arabica, previamente classificadas sensorialmente. Os resultados obtidos indicaram que existe um bom potencial para correlacionar os dados químicos, tratados pelo método estatístico de Análise dos Componentes Principais (ACP), com as análises sensoriais como forma de diferenciar a qualidade desses tipos de amostra. Foi observado que os isomeros 3,4-dicafeoilquínico (3,4-diCQA) e 3,5-dicafeoilquínico (3,5-diCQA) sao muito importantes para o agrupamento das amostras boas e ruins mencionadas acima