| Abstract
| - Monascus-fermented red mold dioscorea (RMD) was proven to produce higher monacolin K levelsthan red mold rice (RMR) in our previous study. The goal of this study is to investigate whether thenovel RMD had more hypolipidemic and antiatherosclerotic effect than traditional red mold rice. Thedaily dose of RMR for adults was recommended as 1 g, which corresponded to 96 mg/kg/day forhamsters. Therefore, high cholesterol diet-induced hyperlipidemic hamsters were daily administratedwith a 0.5-fold (48 mg/kg/day), a 1-fold (96 mg/kg/day), or a 5-fold dose (480 mg/kg/day) of RMDfor 8 weeks. Furthermore, a 1-fold dose of RMR (96 mg/kg/day) and unfermented dioscorea (96mg/kg/day) were also respectively used to evaluate the effect of hypolipidemic and antiarteriosclerosis.The results indicated that only needing a 0.5-fold dose of RMD was able to significantly lower totalcholesterol (by 13.78%, p<0.001), triglyceride (by 38.74%, p<0.01), and low-density lipoproteincholesterol levels (by 43.11%, p<0.05) as well as maintain a high-density lipoprotein cholesterollevel, as compared to the hyperlipidemic group. RMD including a higher monacolin K level and adioscorea substrate was able to exhibit a more significant difference in the hypolipidemic effect thanRMR or unfermented dioscorea. Both RMR and dioscorea exhibited potent in vitro antioxidative abilityand in vivo protection against hypolipidemia-induced oxidative stress. Therefore, the antioxidativeability of RMD provided by Monascus metabolites (dimerumic acid, tannin, phenol, etc.) as well asdioscorea was able to perform more antiatherosclerotic effects on increasing total antioxidant status,catalase, and superoxide dismutase activity and repressing lipid peroxidation and atheroscleroticplaque than RMR and dioscorea. Keywords: Monascus; red mod rice; red mold dioscorea; dioscorea; monacolin; hypolipidemia;antiatherosclerosis
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