Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

God knows if I am doing this right. . So I want to test cayenne pepper, garlic, cinnamon and others on well cholesterol. I know its not cholesterol that exactly causes atherosclerosis but when it is oxidized. So I am thinking I can get either egg or lard and use a cholesterol test to see how much ldl, hdl and oxidized ldl in it and then add the crushed cayenne or garlic. It will be in at least 200 ml of water over the temperature of 37 celsius to mimic blood, then a wait period of 6 hours. I will then use the cholesterol test again to record the results as well as the weight difference. I don't know if I am on the right path here, and so if there is any advice you can give me or help with, it would be greatly appreciated. Like what exactly is the free radicals?
Thank You

Hi Maham,

Egg yolk is a good source of cholesterol, but what test kit are you going to use? I don’t know of a home test kit that allows you to measure LDL and HDL as well as cholesterol. There are some commercial assay kits but they are quite expensive: http://www.abcam.com/hdl-and-ldlvldl-ch ... 65390.html

How did you plan to distinguish oxidized LDL from non-oxidized LDL? I did a search and what I found was an antibody-based assay that would have to be performed in a professional lab: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q= ... XY&cad=rja

What you are proposing is a great project, but unless you have access to a research lab that has the equipment and reagents to measure HDL, LDL and LDL-ox, I don’t see how you can do it in a high school lab. You can get a home test instrument that measures cholesterol and triglycerides, so you could do your experiment with cayenne or garlic and see if there is any change in these compounds.

The test equipment is designed to work with blood so I am not sure if it will read correctly using egg yolk. You could call the manufacturer’s tech support number, tell them that you are a student doing a science project where you need to measure cholesterol in egg yolk because you aren’t allowed to use human blood and ask them if their instrument will work ok with a drop of yolk.

I hope this helps. Hopefully the other experts can add some suggestions or more information.

Good luck!

Sybee

I do not know what type of materials or equipment that you have access to, but most studies that investigate the cholesterol lowering effects of spices involve feeding rats spice extracts, and then conducting biochemical assays on bile acids extracted the rats' livers as well as the rats' fecal sterols in order to access levels of LDLs and HDLs. If you have access to rats, you might want to use them. Other spices you might want to investigate would be garlic and ginger. Sorry I can't be of more help.

Hi there,

You've already gotten some great advice from the previous experts, and I agree that while this is a really interesting project idea, it may require some sophisticated molecular biology or biochemistry techniques that can only be done in a research lab. Are there any local labs that work on cholesterol or on atherosclerosis that may be able to help you? If you are interested in finding a mentor to help you with your project, go ahead and take a look at this page from Science Buddies: https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... tors.shtml. It gives you some great advice on how to search for a mentor.

Let us know if you have anymore questions.

Connie