Effect of Agrimonia Pilosa Ledeb. on glucose tolerance and hepatic steatosis in ovariectomized rats fed high fat diet

Abstract

Estrogen deficiency is associated with obesity, dyslipidemia, and increased insulin resistance in postmenopausal women. Development of an efficient therapeutic agent without side effects is needed to prevent or improve postmenopausal symptoms and diseases induced by estrogen deficiency. This study was performed to investigate the effects of water extract from Agrimonia pilosa Ledeb. on glucose and lipid metabolism in ovariectomized rats fed high fat diet. Female Sprague Dawley rats were sham operated or ovariectomized and after 3 weeks, assigned to the following groups: sham‐operated + high fat diet(S); ovariectomized + high fat diet (OVX); ovariectomized + high fat diet with 0.1% A. pilosa water extract (OVX+0.1A); ovariectomized + high fat diet with 0.5% A. pilosa water extract (OVX+0.5A). In our results, ovariectomy significantly increased body weight and dietary intake compare with sham group (p<0.05), however there was no significant difference in weight gain and dietary intake by A. pilosa treatment. Blood triglyceride, total‐cholesterol, and LDL‐cholesterol showed a tendency to decrease in A. pilosa supplemented groups. In glucose metabolism, we observed the blood glucose levels of the OVX+0.1A and OVX+0.5A groups were lower than those of the OVX group (p<0.05). Blood adiponectin concentration was also increased significantly by A. pilosa treatment in ovariectomized group (p<0.05). Additionally, we investigated the suppressive effect of A. pilosa aqueous extract on hepatic lipid accumulation. These effects were accompanied by reduced hepatic tissue expression of steatosis‐related genes. These data suggest that A. pilosa improves glucose tolerance and hepatic steatosis in ovariectomized rats.Support or Funding InformationThis study was supported by a research project of the National Institute of Agricultural Science of the Rural Development Administration, Republic of Korea (project no. PJ008554), and by the National Research Foundation of Korea(NRF) grant funded by the Korea government(MSIT) (No. 2017R1C1B5018328).This abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2018 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal.