Narrow Results

In order to investigate the mechanism of the therapeutic effect of puerarin on non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, a non-alcoholic fatty disease male rat model was induced by a high fat diet, all rats were randomly divided into a blank group, model group, simavastatin group and puerarin group. After 4 weeks of drug treatment, the liver was slided to investigate pathological morphology. Elisa was used to measure the total cholesterol (TC), triglyeride (TG) in liver, and leptin content in serum. RT-PCR and Western blotting were employed to detect liver leptin mRNA receptor expression and P-JAK2, P-STAT3 expression levels in the liver respectively. The results showed that puerarin significantly decreased the TG, TC content in liver of the non-alcoholic fatty disease rats, ameliorated steatosis in liver, lowered liver inflammatory reaction, decreased leptin level in serum, and enhanced the expression of leptin receptor mRNA and P-JAK2/P-STAT3 level. All the results demonstrated that puerarin can exhibit therapeutic effect on non-alcoholic fatty liver disease by improving leptin signal transduction through JAK2/STAT3 pathways.

In the present study, the effects of electroacupuncture (EA) on body weight and sensitivity of leptin in diet-induced obese rats were examined and the underlying mechanisms were explored. After feeding with high-fat (HIF) diet for 12 weeks, the diet-induced obese rats received electroacupuncture stimulation three times per week for four weeks. The expression of the leptin receptor in the hypothalamus was measured using immunohistochemistry. The plasma leptin was detected with ELISA. The leptin and leptin receptor mRNA was examined with real-time PCR. Results showed that electroacupuncture treatment led to a reduction of body weight, decrease in the plasma leptin levels, and an increase in leptin receptor expression in the hypothalamus. Our results suggested that regulating the expression of leptin and the leptin receptor might be one of the molecular mechanisms underlying the reduction of body weight in diet-induced obese rats by electroacupuncture treatment.