Silymarin protects against high fat diet-evoked metabolic injury by induction of glucagon-like peptide 1 and sirtuin 1

Abstract

High-fat diet (HFD) is one of the major causes of increased prevalence of the metabolic syndrome. In this study, effect of silymarin on prevention and improvement of metabolic injury in HFD-induced rats was assessed. Results showed that silymarin intervention from 0 week or 8th week of the time course in the experiment significantly improved metabolic syndromes, including insulin resistance and dyslipidemia in high fat diet-treated rats. Silymarin also can ameliorate the HFD-impaired glucose tolerance and recover, further enhance HFD-impaired glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1) secretion in these rats. Intervention of silymarin from 0 week can prevent HFD-induced hepatic steatosis, pancreas fibrosis, and decreased sirtuin 1 protein levels of pancreas and liver in rats. In conclusion, silymarin can prevent and ameliorate HFD-induced metabolic syndrome, as well as improvement of GLP-1 secretion and Sirt1 protein expression, suggesting that silymarin may be a potential food factor against metabolic injury.

Keywords

• High fat diet
• Silymarin
• Metabolic syndrome
• GLP-1
• Sirt1