nutrients Article Chinese Olive (Canarium album L.) Fruit Extract Attenuates Metabolic Dysfunction in Diabetic Rats Yu-Te Yeh 1, An-Na Chiang 2 and Shu-Chen Hsieh 1,* 1 Institute of Food Science and Technology, National Taiwan University, Taipei 106, Taiwan;
[email protected] 2 Institute of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, National Yang-Ming University, Taipei 112, Taiwan;
[email protected] * Correspondence:
[email protected]; Tel.: +886-2-3366-9871 Received: 2 September 2017; Accepted: 12 October 2017; Published: 15 October 2017 Abstract: Hyperglycemia and dysregulation of lipid metabolism play a crucial role in metabolic dysfunction. The aims of present study were to evaluate the ameliorative effect of the ethyl acetate fraction of Chinese olive fruit extract (CO-EtOAc) on high-fat diet (HFD) and streptozotocin (STZ)-induced diabetic rats. CO-EtOAc, rich in gallic acid and ellagic acid, could markedly decreased the body weight and epididymal adipose mass. In addition, CO-EtOAc increased serum HDL-C levels, hepatic GSH levels, and antioxidant enzyme activities; lowered blood glucose, serum levels of total cholesterol (TC), triglycerides (TG), bile acid, and tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNFα); and reduced TC and TG in liver. We further demonstrated that CO-EtOAc mildly suppressed hepatic levels of phosphorylated IRS-1, TNF-α, and IL-6, but enhanced Akt phosphorylation. The possible mechanisms of cholesterol metabolism were assessed by determining the expression of genes involved in cholesterol transportation, biosynthesis, and degradation. It was found that CO-EtOAc not only inhibited mRNA levels of SREBP-2, HMG-CoAR, SR-B1, and CYP7A1 but also increased the expression of genes, such as ABCA1 and LDLR that governed cholesterol efflux and cholesterol uptake.