Ligusticum chuanxiong Prevents Ovariectomy-Induced Liver and Vascular Damage in Rats

Abstract

Post-menopause, there is an increase in body weight, visceral adiposity, and risk of developing non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), which leads to various cardiovascular diseases (CVDs). Some natural products have proven useful for counteracting the detrimental effects of menopause. The rhizome of Ligusticum chuanxiong Hort. (LC) is a well-known medicinal herb widely used in Chinese communities for the treatment of CVDs. The hepatic and vascular protective effects of LC ethanolic extract under postmenopausal conditions were investigated on ovariectomized (OVX) rats supplemented with or without LC ethanolic extract (600 mg/kg body weight/day, p.o.) or 17β-estradiol (1 mg/kg body weight/day, p.o.) for 12 weeks. The current findings demonstrated that consumption of LC ethanolic extract could reduce the body weight gain, improve serum lipid profile (lowering low density lipoprotein cholesterol but raising high density lipoprotein cholesterol), combat NAFLD, and protect vascular endothelium in the OVX rats. The beneficial effects of LC may be associated with its antioxidant or vasorelaxant compounds, which enhance the levels of hepatic antioxidant enzymes and up-regulate endothelial nitric oxide synthase mRNA expression, respectively. Taken together, LC may be a promising natural supplement for postmenopausal women to prevent NAFLD and CVDs.

Royal jelly attenuates nonalcoholic fatty liver disease by inhibiting oxidative stress and regulating the expression of circadian genes in ovariectomized rats

“…Based on the current finding, OVX rats had high lipid peroxidation in the liver, an increase in MDA and NO levels, and a decrease in SOD and GSH‐PX. Such findings suggest that ovariectomy causes oxidative stress in the liver, thereby aligning with previous findings (Jeong et al, ; Li et al, ). Estrogen could decrease ROS levels by increasing the production of SOD and GSH‐PX (Oge, Sezer, Özgönül, Bayraktar, & Sözmen, ).…”

“…This experiment was conducted according to a previous study (Li, Wu, & Yang, ). A Hitachi 7020 automatic biochemistry analyzer (Hitachi Co. Ltd., Japan) was used to determine the content of serum total cholesterol (TC) (Cat No: 07485/00003709), TG (Cat No: 07420/00003568), low‐density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL‐C) (Cat No: 23748/00003964), high‐density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL‐C) (Cat No: 23759/00003933), alanine transaminase (ALT) (Cat No: 07495/00003783), and aspartate transaminase (AST) (Cat No: 07496/00003763) in blood samples using specific kits from Shenergy‐DiaSys Diagnostic System Co., Ltd (Shanghai, China).…”

“…This experiment was conducted according to a previous study (Li, Wu, & Yang, 2013). A Hitachi 7020 automatic biochemistry analyzer (Hitachi Co. Ltd., Japan) was used to determine the content…”

Screening potential mitochondria-targeting compounds from traditional Chinese medicines using a mitochondria-based centrifugal ultrafiltration/liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry method

“…Some TCMs such as PR [15] , [16] and CR [17] , [18] have been suggested to possess a range of pharmaceutical effects, including anti-cancer, cardio-, hepatic- and neuro-protection. It has been reported that several substances in PR, such as puerarin [13] , daidzin [19] , [20] , daidzein [21] , [22] , genistein [23] , [24] and formononetin [25] , [26] , and one compound (ligustilide [27] ) in CR could remedy mitochondrial functions to exert their pharmacological efficacy.…”

Hepatoprotective Effect of Kaempferol Against Alcoholic Liver Injury in Mice

“…Natural products with hepatoprotective activity have been applied to protect various liver disorders (Gou et al, 2013;Li et al, 2013), however only few of them have been proven for hepatoprotective activities against ALI (Adewusi and Afolayan, 2010). Silymarin is the most popular drug against ALI despite of a controversy about its effect.…”