Dietary supplementation with chickpeas for at least five weeks results in small but significant reductions in serum total- and LDL-cholesterol in adult women and men

Aim: To compare the effects of a chickpea-supplemented diet and those of a wheat-supplemented diet on human serum lipids and lipoproteins. Methods: Forty-seven free-living adults participated in a randomized crossover weight maintenance dietary intervention involving two dietary periods, chickpea-supplemented and wheat-supplemented diets, each of at least 5 weeks duration. Results: The serum total cholesterol and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels were significantly lower (both p < 0.01) by 3.9 and 4.6%, respectively, after the chickpea-supplemented diet as compared with the wheat-supplemented diet. Protein (0.9% of energy, p = 0.01) and monounsaturated fat (3.3% of total fat, p < 0.001) intakes were slightly but significantly lower and the carbohydrate intake significantly higher (1.7% of energy, p < 0.001) on the chickpea-supplemented diet as compared with the wheat-supplemented diet. Multivariate analyses suggested that the differences in serum lipids were mainly due to small differences in polyunsaturated fatty acid and dietary fibre contents between the two intervention diets. Conclusions: Inclusion of chickpeas in an intervention diet results in lower serum total and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels as compared with a wheat-supplemented diet.