Abstract
Recently, the use of synbiotics for managing various diseases has dramatically increased. Synbiotics have been shown to be a good approach to influence the composition of the gut microbiota with positive health effects. Management of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) complications is one of the reasons for the ingestion of synbiotics and so the aim of the current study was to determine the effects of synbiotic bread intake on markers of lipid profile in T2DM patients. One hundred T2DM patients (age between 20 and 60 years) were randomly assigned to four groups to consume different types of synbiotic bread, three times/day, for 8 weeks: "synbiotic + lactic acid" (n = 25; IV), "synbiotic" (n = 25; III), "lactic acid brad" (n = 25; II), or "control" (n = 25; I). The measured outcomes included anthropometric characteristics, glycemic control parameters, blood lipids, and apolipoproteins. The consumption of "synbiotic + lactic acid bread" (group IV) and "lactic acid bread" (group II) led to a significant decrease in total cholesterol (TC) and glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c) compared to the "control bread." The HbA1c levels were also significantly lower when compared to group II. Additionally, apolipoprotein A (Apo A1) levels were significantly decreased in group IV, compared to control and other groups (post hoc analysis). No significant differences between groups were observed for triglyceride (TG), high-density lipoprotein (HDL), low-density lipoprotein (LDL), and apolipoprotein B100 (Apo B100) levels. The observed results show that the synbiotic bread (with or without lactic acid) promoted a decrease in total cholesterol (TC) and Apo A1 in diabetic patients when consumed daily for 8 weeks.