Effects Of Effect Parts Of Zingiber Officinale (EPZ) On The Fatty Degeneration In The Liver Of The Experimental Hyperlipidemic Rats

OBJECTIVE: Hyperlipidemia is one of the major risk factors for atherosclerosis(AS). The continuate dislipidemia will act on the heart, brain, liver and other correlative tissues and organs, while influencing the modality and function of blood vessel. Therefore, hyperlipidemia is the common pathology basic of many diseases. Liver is the most important organ of bio-metabolism, playing crucial roles on the synthesizing, secretion, metabolism and excretion of substance. just like lipid, carbohydrate, etc. For instance, when the balance of lipid metabolism is broken, the fat deposition and steatosis will gradually appear. Then fat liver is coming to being. The ignorance of fat liver will evolve this disease to become non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH). Currently, NASH is taken as pre-symptom of cryptogenic cirrhosis, even closely related with hepatocellulor carrinoma(HCC). According the "two hits hypothesis" of DAY, published in 1998, the risk factors of these liver diseases are including hyperlipidemia, insulin resistance(IR), oxidative stress and lipid per-oxidation, etc. All of the factors can damage liver by cooperation and ladder-like reaction. A vicious circle is gradually developed, then lead to the exacerbation of liver disease. Under this situation, it is necessary to take effective drugs to break this vicious circle. This research aims to investigate the protective effects of the Effect Parts of Zingiber officinal(EPZ) on the lipid metabolism, anti-oxidative action and anti-inflammation action of the experimental hyperlipidemic rat and the mechanism of its effects. METHODS: 70 male Wistar rats were randomly divided into 6 groups: normal group, EPZ low dose group(200mg/kg), EPZ middle dose group(400mg/kg), EPZ highdose group(800mg/kg), lovastatin group(20mg/kg). The rats in normal group were fed a regular diet for 13 weeks, others were fed a diet containing 3% cholesterol, 10% axungia after injection of bovine serum albumin (25mg/kg). after 13 weeks, all the rats were killed after a fast of 12 hours, the whole rats liver was taken out perfectly. The smallest part of liver was used for specimen, fixing with 10% formaldehyde solution. Latterly they were made paraffin section to observe the morphologic change. Another liver tissue was take out to make 10% liver homogenate, on the condition of 4"C. The content or activity of TG, TG, HL, LPL in livre homogenate were determined by the relevant methods and instruments. The hepatic index was calculated by the weight of liver. Half of specimens of liver were stain by H-E. And evaluated the severity of fatty degeneration and inflammation by the semi-quantitative scoring system. Half of specimens were stain by immunohistochemistric method and evaluated the expressing degrees of tumor necrosis factor-a in the cells of liver by the semi-quantitative scoring system too. All the results were under process of statistics software. P<0.05 was the significant symbol. RESULTS: 1) After 13 weeks, the level of TC, TG of liver tissue were increased significantly, while HL, LPL decreased significantly, compared with those of normal group. After 13-week drugs treatment, TC, TG changed more obviously and HL,LPL were increased significantly in middle and high dose group compared with those of model group. 2 ) In the model group, the level of MDA in liver were increased significantly and SOD decreased on the contrary compared with those of normal group after 13-weeks. The level of SOD of all EPZ groups increased significantly and the level of MDA decreased significantly, compared with model group. The changes in high dose group are more significantly than others. 3) After 13 weeks, the hepatic index increased significantly in model group compared with normal group. The index of high dose group of EPZ decreased distinctly compared with model group. 4) In the model group, the severity of fatty degeneration and inflammation were aggravated evidently compared with normal group. After 13 weeks, the severity of inflammation in liver tissue were alleviated significantly inmiddle and high dose groups of EPZ, compared with model group. The severity of fatty degeneration was alleviated significantly only in hige dose group of EPZ, compared with model group. 5) In the model group, the expressing degrees of TNF-a in cell of liver was higher evidently than normal group. After 13 weeks, the expressing degrees of TNF-a in liver cell was lower than model group significantly in high dose groups of EPZ. CONCLUSIONS: The results of our study demonstrate that EPZ has many effective functions in protecting fatty liver and NASH. It could improve the activity of SOD, LPL, HL of liver tissue. While lower the level of TC, TG, MDA, hepatic index and reduces the expressing degrees of TNF-a . It also has many other functions of anti-inflammention in fatty liver. In a summary, EPZ might protect the liver of high-lipid-diet fed rats and play a good role in the prevention and treatment of hyperlipidemia, fatty liver, NASH and atherosclerosis.