Schisandra Fruit Vinegar Lowers Lipid Profile in High-Fat Diet Rats

Rui Yuan; Guangren Sun; Jiaqi Gao; Zepeng Yu; Chunyan Yu; Chunmei Wang; Jinghui Sun; He Li; Jianguang Chen

doi:10.1155/2020/7083415

Schisandra Fruit Vinegar Lowers Lipid Profile in High-Fat Diet Rats

Evid Based Complement Alternat Med. 2020 Sep 3:2020:7083415. doi: 10.1155/2020/7083415. eCollection 2020.

Authors

Rui Yuan¹, Guangren Sun², Jiaqi Gao¹, Zepeng Yu¹, Chunyan Yu³, Chunmei Wang¹, Jinghui Sun¹, He Li¹, Jianguang Chen¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Pharmacology, College of Pharmacy, Beihua University, Jilin 132013, China.
² Department of Food Science, College of Forestry, Beihua University, Jilin 132013, China.
³ Department of Pathology, College of Medicine, Beihua University, Jilin 132013, China.

Abstract

Hyperlipidemia and its associated obesity, hepatic steatosis, and NAFLD are worldwide problems. However, there is no ideal pharmacological treatment for these. Therefore, the complementary therapies that are both natural and safe have been focused. Healthy foods, such as fruit vinegar, may be one of the best choices. In this study, we made a special medicinal fruit vinegar, Schisandra fruit vinegar (SV), and examined its lipid-lowering effects and the underlying mechanisms in a high-fat diet rat model. The results showed that SV significantly reduced the body weight, liver weight, liver index, the serum triglyceride (TG), total cholesterol (TC), low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), free fatty acid (FFA), aspartate aminotransferase (AST), alanine aminotransferase (ALT), and malondialdehyde (MDA), increased the content of high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) and the activity of superoxide dismutase (SOD), upregulated the expressions of peroxisome proliferative activated receptor (PPAR-α), peroxisomal acyl-coenzyme A oxidase 1 (ACOX1), and carnitine palmitoyltransferase 1 (CPT1) proteins, increased the contents of key component of antioxidant defense NF-E2-related factor 2 (NRF2) and its downstream heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1) protein, and downregulated the expression of Kelch-like ECH-associated protein 1 (KEAP1). These results suggest that SV has weight loss and lipid-lowering effects in HFD rats, which may be related to its upregulation of the expressions of β-oxidation -elated PPAR-α, CPT1, and ACOX1 and the regulation of the expressions of antioxidant pathway-related KEAP1-NRF2-HO-1. Therefore, all these data provide an experimental basis for the development of SV as a functional beverage which is safe, effective, convenient, and inexpensive.