Abstract
Hyperlipidemia is closely related to oxidative stress, and it has been proved that the intake of legumes can protect the body from chronic diseases related to oxidative stress. In this study, we investigated the protective effects of mung beans and peas against high‐fat‐diet‐induced rats. It was found that, with 50% addition of mung beans or peas, the intake of mung beans and peas could significantly restore the levels of serum total cholesterol, low‐density lipoprotein cholesterol, and high‐density lipoprotein cholesterol. Liver staining also showed that high‐fat diet (HFD) led to liver lesions, whereas whole‐grain intake could significantly relieve these symptoms. Compared with the HFD group, the antioxidant defense system and antioxidant gene expression in administered legume groups improved markedly. Furthermore, the antioxidant activities of the two legume extracts were determined. Characterization showed that the ethanol extracts of mung beans and peas possessed high antioxidant activities, for their ability to scavenge ABTS and DPPH, reduce Fe3+ and their antilipid peroxidation capacity. Treatments with ethanol extracts at different doses could restore the levels of intracellular lipid, malondialdehyde, and antioxidant enzyme activities in oleic acid‐induced HepG2 cells. All these results suggested that mung beans and peas or their extracts may be utilized as good candidates of natural antioxidant agents.
Highlights
The final body weight and liver weight of rats fed with high-fat diet (HFD) were 12.26% and 70.71% higher than those rats fed with normal fat diet (NFD) (p < .05), and there was no significant difference between legume supplementation groups and HFD group
The relative gene expression levels of NF-E2-related factor 2 (Nrf2), NAD(P)H quinone dehydrogenase 1 (NQO1), CAT, superoxide dismutase (SOD), and heme oxygenase 1 (HO-1) in rats fed with HFDM-H were 84.22%, 180.32%, 54.65%, 118.38%, and 79.35% higher than those in rats fed with HFD (p < .05), respectively
The increases in low-density lipoprotein (LDL)-C and total cholesterol (TC) levels and decreases in high-density lipoprotein (HDL)-C could be significantly inhibited in the HFDM-H rats, suggesting that mung beans and peas could be good candidates for blood lipid reducing
Summary
The mung beans and peas were obtained from a food company in Shanxi Province, China. Kits for catalase (CAT), TC, triglyceride (TG), low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), total antioxidant capacity (T-AOC), and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) were purchased from Jiancheng Bioengineering Institute, Nanjing, China. Different from the data of serum enzymes and MDA, the effects on antioxidant status in livers were observed mainly in liver CAT and T-AOC levels, which were increased by 28.82% and 71.45% for HFDM-H rats and 31.27% and 69.41% for HFDP-H rats, respectively. The relative gene expression levels of CAT, SOD, heme oxygenase 1 (HO-1), transcription factor NF-E2-related factor 2 (Nrf2), and NAD(P)H quinone dehydrogenase 1 (NQO1) in HFDM-L and HFDP-L rats were markedly increased by a higher dose legume diet compared with the HFD group. The ethanol extracts of mung beans with the concentration of 400 μg/ml had the best antioxidant effect
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