# Effect of Daily Intake of a Saffron Infusion on Blood Cholesterol Levels
## 3 Results and Discussion
### Effect on the Lipid Profile  
Each patient's nutritional status was monitored by anthropometry at the beginning of the study and at the end. Two anthropometric measurements were carried out. The patients responded to dietary questionnaires on their food consumption frequency (CFC), which directly estimated the dietary intake, allowing us to establish an individual diet profile and the caloric and nutritional contribution; we used a 24 h reminder to assess the consumption of food and nutrients and the Nutritional Screening Initiative check list (NSI) to detect nutritional status and assess nutritional risk. Only one of the patients was on the lipid-lowering drug simvastatin at the start of the study, and they continued this treatment for 96 days of the study. All patients were receiving MS treatment at the start of the study, and continued without variation for the duration of the study. Of the 35 MS patients included, 16 completed the study. The reason for the high dropout rate was that many of the volunteers did not like the taste of the infusion. One subject was eliminated because he made a change to his diet, and therefore the effect we observed could not be confirmed to be due to the intake of the infusion. The mean age of these patients was \(49.8\pm 12.1\) years, and 62% were women. Table 3 shows the results of TC, TG, LDL-C, and HDL-C. There was a decrease in TC levels in 13 of the 16 patients (87.5%), and TG level decreased in 11 of the 16 patients (69.0%). The TC level at the start of the study was \(199.5\pm 27.6\) mg/dL, and it was \(179.2\pm 19.8\) mg/dL after administration of the saffron infusion for 93 days. This decrease of \(20.3\pm 22.0\) was statistically significant (\(p=0.002\)). This means that 44% of the sample had a TC level above 200.0 mg/dL at the beginning of the study, which decreased by 19% after the saffron administration. In women, the mean TC at baseline was \(199.0\pm 24.6\) mg/dL, and in men it was \(201.0\pm 34.4\) mg/dL. After saffron intake, it was \(178.1\pm 16.7\) mg/dL in women and \(180.9\pm 25.7\) mg/dL in men. Regarding the level of TG in the blood, the mean before the study was \(124.0\) (80.0) mg/dL, and after treatment with saffron it was \(101.0\pm 51.6\) mg/dL. The mean decrease was \(23.0\pm 42.1\) mg/dL. Thirty-one percent of the patients had a TG level greater than 150 mg/mL at baseline, and after ingestion this decreased by 19%. The mean TG in women at baseline was \(127.4\pm 79.0\) mg/dL and in men was \(118.8\pm 89.1\) mg/dL. In the end, it was \(97.9\pm 47.9\) mg/dL and \(107.0\pm 61.6\) mg/dL; the mean decreases in TG were \(29.5\pm 36.2\) mg/dL and \(11.7\pm 52.2\) mg/dL in women and men, respectively. \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c c c c c} \hline
**Control** & **Days** & **A\({}_{257}\)** & **A\({}_{330}\)** & **A\({}_{440}\)** & **Picr** & **Saf** & **\(\Sigma\)Crc** & **\(\Sigma\)I-Crc** \\ \hline
1 & 0 & \(84.4\pm 1.2^{\text{b}}\) & \(31.6\pm 0.2^{\text{b}}\) & \(229\pm 6\) & \(12.3\pm 0.5\) & \(0.11\pm 0.00^{\text{c}}\) & \(21.2\pm 0.8^{\text{a}}\) & \(18.9\pm 0.5^{\text{a}}\) \\
2 & 45 & \(87.1\pm 1.1^{\text{a}}\) & \(33.6\pm 0.3^{\text{a}}\) & \(226\pm 5\) & \(12.9\pm 0.6\) & \(0.28\pm 0.01^{\text{b}}\) & \(20.8\pm 0.7^{\text{a}}\) & \(17.8\pm 0.4^{\text{b}}\) \\
3 & 96 & \(66.2\pm 0.9^{\text{c}}\) & \(20.2\pm 0.1^{\text{c}}\) & \(219\pm 4\) & \(13.0\pm 0.6\) & \(0.30\pm 0.01^{\text{a}}\) & \(17.9\pm 0.9^{\text{b}}\) & \(17.0\pm 0.6^{\text{b}}\) \\ \hline \multicolumn{8}{c}{One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA). Different letters (a, b, c) within each column represent statistically significant differences (\(p<0.05\)).} \\ \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 2: Controls of the samples administrated to the patients and spectrophotometric parameters according to ISO 3632 (A\({}_{257}\), A\({}_{330}\) and A\({}_{440}\)) and percentage (_w/w_) of bioactive compounds by HPLC: picrocrocin (Picr), safranal (Saf), sum crocins (\(\Sigma\)Crc), and sum of _trans_-crocins (\(\Sigma\)I-Crc).