Antiobesity and anti-inflammation effects of Hakka stir-fried tea of different storage years on high-fat diet-induced obese mice model via activating the AMPK/ACC/CPT1 pathway

Background: As a typical representative of metabolic syndrome, obesity is also one of the extremely dangerous factors of cardiovascular diseases. Thus, the prevention and treatment of obesity has gradually become a global campaign. There have been many reports that green tea is effective in preventing obesity, but as a kind of green tea with regional characteristics, there have been no reports that Hakka stir-fried tea (HT) of different storage years has a weight loss effect.

Aims: The aim was to investigate the effect of HT in diet-induced obese mice.

Methods: The mice were divided into five groups as follows: the control group received normal diet; the obese model group received high-fat diet; and HT2003, HT2008, and HT2015 groups, after the induction of obesity via a high-fat diet, received HT of different storage years treatment for 6 weeks, respectively.

Results: It was observed that HT decreased the levels of serum and liver triglyceride; the ratio of liver to body weight; accumulation of epididymal, perirenal, and mesenteric fat; the degree of hepatic steatosis; and adipocyte hypertrophy, with the concomitant reduction of body weight. Moreover, HT decreased the expression levels of proinflammatory cytokines tumor necrosis factor α (TNF α), inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS), cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) and reduced fatty acid synthase (FAS) activity in liver tissue of obese mice. In addition, HT treatment also increased the phosphorylation of AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) and its direct downstream proteins, acetyl coenzyme A carboxylase (ACC), and carnitine palmitoyltransferase I (CPT-1), which participate in FAS pathway.

Conclusions: These findings demonstrate that HT treatment has a potential protection on high-fat diet-induced obesity mice via activating the AMPK/ACC/CPT1 pathway, and to a certain extent, it has nothing to do with the storage time of three kinds of HT.

Keywords: AMPK/ACC/CPT1 pathway; Hakka stir-fried tea; fat accumulation; hepatic steatosis; inflammation; obesity.