Yoshinobu Ijiri, Hiromitsu Ishii and Junichiro Yamamoto*
Prevention of arterial thrombotic disorders is a very important socioeconomic challenge. The most convenient way of prevention could be by dietary means. In testing diets for antithrombotic effect, selection of pathologically relevant models of arterial thrombosis is of crucial importance. We demonstrated that the shear-induced platelet-rich thrombosis/thrombolysis in vitro/ex vivo test, Global Thrombosis test (GTT), provided the closest approximation to the pathology of arterial thrombogenesis. We have found that specified fruit and vegetable varieties have antithrombotic activity in animal experiments using shear-induced thrombosis/thrombolysis in vitro/ex vivo and laser-induced in vivo tests and that antithrombotic activity is due to inhibition of thrombosis and/or enhancement of thrombolysis. Here we present a pilot study in a small number of volunteers on diet containing potatoes, onions and apples which were tested antithrombotic with the Global Thrombosis Test. This study shows a trend of beneficial effect of such diet in humans and encourages the organization of a large scale, well controlled crossover study to establish the real benefit of such diet in preventing atherothrombotic diseases.
