Abstract
Excessive food consumption and insufficient exercise lead to the prevalence of metabolic syndrome in modern life, which consequently increases the risk of many chronic diseases. Magnesium lithospermate B (MLB) from Danshen has been demonstrated to improve metabolic changes in high-fat diet–fed rats with metabolic syndrome. In this study, Mg2+ in MLB was successfully replaced with Zn2+ to form zinc lithospermate B (ZLB) complex. MLB (10 mg/kg /day) and ZLB of various concentrations (1, 2.5, 5, and 10 mg/kg/day) were prepared and examined for their therapeutic effects on metabolic syndrome induced in rats fed with a high-fat diet. The results showed that both MLB and ZLB were able to recover or alleviate the abnormal physiological states of high-fat diet–fed rats including weight gain, epididymal fat accumulation, fatty liver, retarded blood lipid and glucose metabolism putatively caused by insulin resistance, and elevated levels of proinflammatory cytokine, leptin, and oxidative stress. In an overall view of the animal study, the effectiveness of ZLB supplementation seemed to be better than that of MLB supplementation for the recovery of high-fat-fed rats from metabolic syndrome.
Highlights
Metabolic syndrome is an emerging health problem worldwide
To confirm the success of incorporation, Lithospermate B (LSB), MLB, and ZLB were subjected to HPLC/UV
The results showed that both fasting glucose and serum insulin in HFD-fed or ZLB
Summary
Metabolic syndrome is an emerging health problem worldwide. It is clinically defined by a group of metabolic risk determinants, including central obesity, hypertension, dyslipidemia, glucose intolerance, and insulin resistance [1,2,3,4]. Insulin resistance represents a central player in the development of metabolic syndrome [5]. An improvement of insulin sensitivity in vulnerable subjects seems to be an adequate therapeutic approach for the treatment of metabolic syndrome. Increasing evidence shows that many herbal extracts and natural compounds have been implicated in the treatment of metabolic syndrome [6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13].
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