The Preventive And Therapeutic Effects Of Curcumin On Hyperlipidemic Fatty Liver And Its Mechanisms In Rats

Aim: To investigate the preventive and therapeutic effect of curcumin on hyperlipidemic fatty liver and its possible mechanisms in rats.Methods: To establish rat model of hyperlipidemic fatty liver by feeding fatty milk, the experimental rats were then interfered with different doses curcumin (40 mg/kg, 80 mg/kg and 160 mg/kg ) and Lipanthyl (20 mg/kg) at the same time . After 5 wk, the preventive and therapeutic and antioxidation effects of curcumin on hyperlipidemic fatty liver were observed, respectively. Histopathological changes of rat liver were observed under light and electron microscopy. Expression of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor alephα(PPARα), cholesterol 7α-hydroxylase (CYP7A), diacylglycerol acyltransferase (DGAT) and liver fatty acid-binding protein(L-FABP) mRNA in hepatic tissues of hyperlipidemic fatty liver rats was examined by RT-PCR, while expression of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gama (PPARγ) and L-FABP protein was examined by immunohistochemistry method.Results: After given curcumin 5 wk ,coefficient of hepatic weight, the serum TG, TC ,LDL-C,FFA ALT ,AST, MDA and hepatic TG, TC ,MDA were significantly decreased as compared with the fatty liver model group(P <0.05 or P<0.01). The contents of HDL-C, SOD in serum and SOD in hepatic tissues were obviously increased(P <0.05 or P<0.01).Importantly,the histological evaluation of rat liver demonstrated that curcumin dramatically decreased lipid accumulation. Curcumin could significantly increase the L-FABP and PPARγprotein expression, PPARα(P <0.05 or P<0.01), CYP7A and L-FABP mRNA expression (P <0.05 or P<0.01), decrease the DGAT mRNA expression in hepatic tissues of hyperlipidemic fatty liver rats (P <0.05 or P<0.01).Conclusion: Curcumin have good preventive and therapeutic effect on hyperlipidemic fatty liver in rats, and the mechanism might be regulation of the L-FABP, CYP7A and DGAT gene expression via increasing the expression of PPARα/γgene expression and associated with its antioxidation.