The Roles of β-Carotene in Cardiomyocytes

: Cardiovascular disease is ranked one as the majority cause of mortality globally, approximately 17.9 million lives each year. There are risk factors of cardiovascular disease such as: behavioural factors, like tobacco use, unbalance diets, alcohol misuse and lack of physical activities, and other underlying health-related factors, like hypertension, dyslipidemia and hyperglycemia which are connected to pathophysiology determinants, such as ageing, and poor overall quality of life. One of the main strategies to prevent those risk is by encouraging healthy life style, including consuming natural supplement as one of a safe way to support health. Recently, β-carotene has gained some attention to the researchers because of its natural antioxidant properties as it is found in fruits and vegetables compounds. In this article we review the effects of β-carotene as an antioxidants that counteract free radicals, as well as cytoprotective agents that have positive benefits as anti-inflammatory for preventing several age-related disease especially in heart muscle cell health.