In relation to non-diabetic vervet monkeys, total cholesterol and LDL levels remained unchanged at each experimental point ( Figure 1 A,B), while 4 weeks treatment promoted a highly significant increase of plasma HDL content in comparison with baseline (+118%, p = 0.012) and after 2 weeks of treatment (+90%, p = 0.008) ( Figure 1 C).
As demonstrated in Figure 2 A,B, at baseline diabetic animals showed significantly higher levels of glycaemia and insulin with respect to the non-diabetic monkeys (+63%, p = 0.03 and +125%, p = 0.04, respectively), while, in terms of fasting glucagon level, the difference recorded did not reach statistical significance ( Figure 2 C).
Interestingly, treatment did not produce any variation in plasma CoQ 10 content in the diabetic monkeys, while non-diabetic monkeys showed a trend towards a decline in plasma CoQ 10 , which was restored after the wash-out period ( Figure 3 A).