Bofu-tsu-shosan, an oriental herbal medicine, exerts a combinatorial favorable metabolic modulation including antihypertensive effect on a mouse model of human metabolic disorders with visceral obesity

PLoS One. 2013 Oct 9;8(10):e75560. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0075560. eCollection 2013.

Abstract

Accumulating evidence indicates that metabolic dysfunction with visceral obesity is a major medical problem associated with the development of hypertension, type 2 diabetes (T2DM) and dyslipidemia, and ultimately severe cardiovascular and renal disease. Therefore, an effective anti-obesity treatment with a concomitant improvement in metabolic profile is important for the treatment of metabolic dysfunction with visceral obesity. Bofu-tsu-shosan (BOF) is one of oriental herbal medicine and is clinically available to treat obesity in Japan. Although BOF is a candidate as a novel therapeutic strategy to improve metabolic dysfunction with obesity, the mechanism of its beneficial effect is not fully elucidated. Here, we investigated mechanism of therapeutic effects of BOF on KKAy mice, a model of human metabolic disorders with obesity. Chronic treatment of KKAy mice with BOF persistently decreased food intake, body weight gain, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol and systolic blood pressure. In addition, both tissue weight and cell size of white adipose tissue (WAT) were decreased, with concomitant increases in the expression of adiponectin and peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors genes in WAT as well as the circulating adiponectin level by BOF treatment. Furthermore, gene expression of uncoupling protein-1, a thermogenesis factor, in brown adipose tissue and rectal temperature were both elevated by BOF. Intriguingly, plasma acylated-ghrelin, an active form of orexigenic hormone, and short-term food intake were significantly decreased by single bolus administration of BOF. These results indicate that BOF exerts a combinatorial favorable metabolic modulation including antihypertensive effect, at least partially, via its beneficial effect on adipose tissue function and its appetite-inhibitory property through suppression on the ghrelin system.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Blood Pressure / drug effects
  • Disease Models, Animal
  • Drugs, Chinese Herbal / therapeutic use*
  • Herbal Medicine / methods*
  • Humans
  • Ion Channels / metabolism
  • Metabolic Diseases / drug therapy*
  • Metabolic Diseases / metabolism
  • Mice
  • Mitochondrial Proteins / metabolism
  • Obesity, Abdominal / drug therapy*
  • Obesity, Abdominal / metabolism
  • Uncoupling Protein 1

Substances

  • Drugs, Chinese Herbal
  • Ion Channels
  • Mitochondrial Proteins
  • UCP1 protein, human
  • Ucp1 protein, mouse
  • Uncoupling Protein 1
  • bofu-tsusho-san

Grants and funding

This work was supported by a Health and Labor Sciences Research grant and by grants from the Japanese Ministry of Education, Science, Sports and Culture, the Salt Science Research Foundation (number 1134), the Yokohama Foundation for Advancement of Medical Science, the Kidney Foundation, Japan (JKFB13-17) and the Novartis Foundation for Gerontological Research (2012). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.