A high fat diet enriched with sea cucumber gut powder provides cardio-protective and anti-obesity effects in C57BL/6 mice

- A high fat diet supplemented with sea cucumber (SC) reduced body weight gain.
- A high fat diet supplemented with SC reduced plasma cholesterol levels.
- SC increased fecal cholesterol excretion and upregulated ABCG-5 and -8 gene expression.

We have previously reported that sea cucumber (SC) inhibits fat accumulation and insulin resistance in 3T3-L1 cells. The present study investigated the anti-obesity and cardio-protective effects of SC freeze-dried gut powder using C57BL/6 as an animal model. Male mice were fed a normal chow diet, a high fat diet (HFD) or a HFD enriched with 2.5, 5 or 7.5% SC gut powder for 4, 8 and 12 weeks. Diets enriched with SC caused a significant reduction in body weight gain and fat weight, compared to the HFD, without affecting food intake. Both 2.5% and 5% SC treatment showed a significant reduction in plasma glucose, triacylglycerol (TG), total cholesterol (TC) and non-esterified fatty acids, compared to the HFD. However, animals fed the 7.5% SC diet showed an increase in liver weight, liver TG and TC, compared to the HFD diet. Diets enriched with 2.5% SC caused an increase in adiponectin mRNA expression in adipose tissue and reduced plasma interleukin-6, compared to the HFD diet. Fecal cholesterol excretion increased after 2.5% SC treatment, coinciding with an increase in ATP-binding cassette-5 and -8 mRNA expression in the small intestine. Although both 2.5 and 5% SC treatment caused weight and fat reduction to a similar extent, 2.5% SC was more effective at improving the metabolic profile. None of the tested SC doses caused any toxic effects. Our findings demonstrate for the first time that SC freeze-dried gut powder has the potential as a nutraceutical to target obesity and related disorders.

A high fat diet (HFD) supplemented with sea cucumber (SC) prevents obesity and protects against HFD associated metabolic dysfunction, such as an increase in plasma glucose, non-esterified fatty acids (NEFA) and triacylglycerol (TAG), which are the markers for insulin resistance, by targeting adiponectin. Furthermore, SC protects against hypercholesterolemia by increasing the mRNA expression of ATP-binding cassette (ABC) G-5 and -8 in the intestine, thereby increasing cholesterol excretion. X represents inhibition by SC.147