Abstract
Macroalgae have attracted great interest for their potential applications in nutraceutical and pharmaceutical industries as source of bioactive medicinal products and food ingredients. This review gathers data from in vitro and in vivo studies addressing the anti-obesity effects of macroalgae. Great consensus exists in all reported in vitro studies concerning the reduction induced by seaweed extracts in the expression of transcriptional factors controlling adipogenesis. In animals, macroalgae reduced body fat accumulation and prevented other obesity features, such as dyslipidemia, insulin resistance and fatty liver. These effects are not due to food intake reduction, since few studies have reported such event. Indeed, the effects on metabolic pathways in target tissues/organs seem to play a more relevant role. Macroalgae can reduce de novo lipogenesis, limiting fatty acid availability for triglyceride synthesis in white adipose tissue. This effect has been observed in both cell cultures and adipose tissue from animals treated with macroalgae extracts. In addition, increased fatty acid oxidation and thermogenic capacity, as well as a shift towards healthier gut microbiota composition may contribute to the body fat-lowering effect of macroalgae. Studies in humans are needed to determine whether macroalgae can represent a feasible tool to prevent and/or manage overweight and obesity.
Highlights
For several centuries, seaweeds, known as macroalgae, have been an important dietary component in Asian countries such as China, Japan and Korea, where they have been used in alternative medicine
Summing-up, the published studies focused on brown algae show that Ecklonia cava, Undaria pinnafitida, Ishige okamurae, Sargassum polycystum, Himanthalia elongate, Ascopjyllum nodosum and Laminaria japonica are able to reduce the body fat increase induced by high-fat diets, showing a preventive role on obesity
This fact can be due to differences in several aspects of the experimental design, such as the used seaweed extract dose (200 mg/kg body weight/d in the study reported by Park et al and 500 mg/kg body weight/d in the study reported by Eo et al.) as well as the experimental period length (11 weeks in the study reported by Park et al and 22 weeks in the study reported by Eo et al.)
Summary
Seaweeds, known as macroalgae, have been an important dietary component in Asian countries such as China, Japan and Korea, where they have been used in alternative medicine. Marine algae are a good source of proteins, containing all the essential amino acids They are of interest due to their richness in sulfated polysaccharides, which vary according to phyla; the main sulfated polysaccharides in marine algae include ulvan (green algae), carrageenan (red algae), fucoidan and laminarans (brown algae) [4]. Another portion of carbohydrates present in macroalgae belongs to dietary fiber, which promotes the improvement of digestive tract health [5]. The schema followed to present the reported information is to describe the results obtained and to summarize the mechanisms explaining these results, in each study
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