Carnosic acid suppresses liver lipogenesis and adipocytes differentiation in ovariectomized C57BL/6J mice fed high‐fat diet

Abstract

In postmenopausal women, loss of systemic estrogen availability induces body fat accumulation which is linked to the increased risk of cardiovascular disease and several cancer development. Carnosic acid (CA) is reported to have anti‐inflammatory and anti‐adipogenic effects. The study was aimed to determine the effect of high‐fat diet (HD) and CA on lipogenesis in ovariectomized (OVX) animals. OVX or sham‐operated mice at 8 weeks of age were fed with normal diet (ND), HD, ND+CA, or HD+CA for 12 weeks. Results indicated that both HD and OVX significantly increased total fat mass which was suppressed by CA supplementation. Circulating concentrations of insulin, leptin and TG were significantly higher in HD and OVX+HD mice compared to those of ND mice while CA supplementation effectively reduced the concentration of these molecules only in OVX+ HD mice. Liver protein expressions of pAMPK and pACC were increased by CA supplementation in OVX+HD mice. The mRNA expressions of liver SREBP1c and FAS were significantly increased by OVX+HD and the expression levels were reduced by CA supplementation. These results suggest that CA suppresses OVX and/or diet‐induced dysregulated lipid metabolism. [This research was supported by Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (20110011669). This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korea government (MSIP) (20080062618)]