Abstract
Metabolic syndrome (MetS) is an immense health issue that causes serious complications in aging males including BPH. Icariin (ICA) is a flavonol glycoside that exerts a plethora of pharmacological effects. The present investigation tested the potential of ICA to ameliorate benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) induced by MetS in rats. Animals were allocated to 5 groups in which the first and second groups were kept on water and regular food pellets. MetS was induced in the third, fourth, and fifth groups by keeping the animals on high fructose and salt diets for twelve consecutive weeks. These groups were given vehicle, ICA (25 mg/kg), and ICA (50 mg/kg), respectively. MetS was confirmed by an increase in rats' weight, accumulation of visceral fat, insulin resistance, and dyslipidemia. This was accompanied by manifestation of BPH including increased prostate weight, prostate index, and histopathological alterations. Treating the animals with both doses of ICA significantly ameliorated the increase in weight and index of the prostate as well as altered prostate histopathology. In addition, ICA significantly decreased cyclin D1 expression, upregulated Bax, and downregulated Bcl2 mRNA expression. ICA prevented lipid peroxidation, reduced glutathione depletion, and catalase exhaustion, which further lowered markers of prostate inflammation such as interleukin-6 and tumor necrosis factor-α. Moreover, ICA prevented the decrease in prostate content of phosphorylated 5'-adenosine monophosphate (AMP)-activated protein kinase (pAMPK). In conclusion, ICA protects against MetS-induced BPH. This is due to its antiproliferative, proapoptotic, antioxidant, and anti-inflammatory activities as well as the activation of AMPK.
Highlights
Benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) is a debilitating condition seen in males during the 4th decade of life
Experimental induction of Metabolic syndrome (MetS) significantly decreased the prostatic content of pAMPK by 53% as compared to control values 25 or 50 mg/kg ICA administration significantly prevented the drop in pAMPK content and enhanced the values by 94% and 112% respectively relative to MetS rats (Fig 5). The aim of this investigation was to assess the protection by ICA in MetS-induced benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) in rats
MetS was achieved by keeping rats on high-fructose drinking water and high-salt diet
Summary
Benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) is a debilitating condition seen in males during the 4th decade of life. The later was reported as a great risk for BPH development and progression of LUTS (Zou et al 2016; Ngai et al 2017; Wu et al 2019). It has been found that decreased 5ʹ-adenosine monophosphate (AMP)-activated protein kinase (AMPK) activity is a risk factor associating MetS to BPH (Vanella et al 2014). This is evidenced by reports highlighting activation of AMPK as a mediator of the protective activity of drugs as metformin (Mosli et al 2015)
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