Guanajuato, Gto., October 5, 2016.- Cardiovascular illnesses problems could be eliminated or diminished based on a vegetable compound, which will be developed during the stay of the researcher of the University of Guanajuato (UG), Dr. Silvio Zaina at the Institute of Science of Food Production at Lecce, Italy.

Dr. Silvio Zaina will make a research titles "Effects of the natural polyphenols on the epigenetic modification in atherosclerosis", with the objective to understand how the natural compounds can diminish the incidences in cardiovascular diseases.

Dr. Zaina is a full-time professor at the Department of Medical Sciences at the Division of Health Sciences of Campus León from the University of Guanajuato, and will work together with Dr. Giovanna Giovinazzo in a short stay at the Institute of Science of Food Production, Lecce, Italy.

It is a short stay financed by the National Council for Research (CNR), Italy, within the program "Short-Term Mobility" of the CNR, which will begin this December 2.

With his research, he seeks to use polyphenols to change, based on a healthy nourishment and physical activity, the negative effect in cardiovascular diseases, in this case, atherosclerosis –disease in the arteries--.

The polyphenols are a sort of compounds found in plants. He explained that there are reports of the benefic properties for health, some of them are anti-inflammatory; its importance relies that inflammation is a significant and negative phenomenon in some diseases called chronic-degenerative, such as cardiovascular diseases and with this compound they pretend to help mitigate the effects or the consequences of these.

The proposed modifications are epigenetic, it means, based on chemical modification that occur in the DNA. With this, the noxious genes can already be changes and/or affected by what you eat and the lifestyle of every person.

"In the beginning, it is possible that through diet, you could change these epigenetic modifications of DNA and turn them from negative to positive and right there is where we cross the area of polyphenols and epigenetic" cleared Dr. Zaina.

Dr. Zaina has experience on epigenetic and cardiovascular studies throughout several years, and the group in Italy has great experience in the field of polyphenols, which will allow to develop and enriching project.

In Italy there is a large vineyard zone and they want to transform waste of this industry which is the shell and seed –rich in polyphenols—into an interesting product, form the health point of view, and at the same time allows to mitigate the noxious environmental effects.

In Mexico, the wine industry is growing and in Guanajuato are new companies emerging in this branch, hence, there could be an interesting advantage for the producers in the state.

During this stay, Dr. Zaina has plans to write a project, for a stay in Europe to support them in the research, make some preliminary experiments, and make a wider research, to seek financing.

For Dr. Zaina stays are an ideal platform to establish a better communication and this project encourages the formation of an international network UG-Italy, sets the bases for UG-CNR agreements and for the presentation of joint projects for the financing of summons for the European Union and Italy.

"We must be ambitious, we lack ambition, try to think beyond the advantages in the short term and try to design sustainable projects" finalized Dr. Silvio Zaina.