by Hanifa Nur Adilah, Novia Delliasari Aliyya Az Zahra, and Syafira Soraya
Hypercholesterolemia
Heart and blood vessel disease or also known as cardiovascular disease is the number one cause of death in the world. One of the risk factors for cardiovascular disease is the condition hypercholesterolemia. Hypercholesterolemia is a metabolic disorder characterized by high levels of cholesterol in the blood. High cholesterol levels in the blood can cause a buildup of fat in the walls of blood vessels. Fat that accumulates in the walls of blood vessels can cause narrowing of blood vessels and blood flow to be inhibited. This state is referred to as atherosclerosis.
Bidara (Ziziphus mauritiana)
Indonesia has many types of fruits that can have the potential for health. One of them is Bidara (Ziziphus mauritiana Lam.). Ziziphus mauritiana is commonly found in the tropical and subtropical regions of Asia, and in Indonesia, this plant grows wild and thrives on the islands of Bali, West Nusa Tenggara, and Java. Bidara or Ziziphus mauritiana is a family of Rhamnaceae. Bidara (Zizipus mauritania) is a plant that is able to survive in a rather dry environment, it can also grow on alkaline, salty, or slightly acidic soils. Growing upright or spreading with its dangling branches, the bidara tree belongs to the prickly plants, its thorns are located on interchange twigs. The leaves are evergreen or half-molt, bidara belongs to a full-fledged plant that has flowers, fruits, stems, roots and leaves. In the Center for Botanicals and Chronic Diseases program which refers to the research of tropical plants from Indonesia that have the potential for health (chronic diseases), we are conducting research on bidara fruit (Ziziphus mauritiana). The fruit was taken from Bugis Village, Medang Island, Sumbawa, West Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia in September 2021. The study was conducted using male Sprague Dawley white rats for treatment.
This research is a research team from Universitas Nasional, consisting of several students and lecturers, and supervised directly by Prof. Dr. Ernawati Sinaga, M.S., Apt. as a lecturer at the Universitas Nasional. There is great hope from the Bidara fruit research team, in order to get research results that can be used in the world of health for chronic disease cures.
