Regulatory effect of sense line diet on cholesterol and body weight in mice fed a high-fat diet

BACKGROUND/AIMS: Sense line diet (SLD) is a newly developed dietary functional food that is composed of a lot of herbs. The function of SLD is to help control weight. Although it is reported that each herb has effects on lipid metabolism and obesity, these effects are not the same as SLD. The aim of this study was therefore to investigate whether SLD combined with high fat (HF) diet can influence body weight and fat accumulation. METHODS: An experiment was conducted with 40 C57BL/6J mice with an initial body weight of about 16 g. Body weight was recorded every week, plasma levels of triglyceride, low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol, and high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol were analyzed at the end of the study. RESULTS: Weight increases in the 10 or 20% SLD group were significantly less than in the HF diet group (p < 0.05). Plasma triglyceride and LDL cholesterol levels were decreased by 52.1 and 34.2% in the 10% SLD group and 15.4 and 15.4% in the 20% SLD group, respectively, compared to the high-fat diet group. HDL cholesterol level was increased by 7.8% in the 10% SLD and by 54.9% in the 20% SLD group. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings indicate that SLD may be beneficial in the regulation of high-fat-diet-induced blood circulatory disorders as well as overweight.