A high fat diet enriched with sea cucumber gut powder provides cardio-protective and anti-obesity effects in C57BL/6 mice.

We have previously reported that sea cucumber (SC) inhibits fat accumulation and insulin resistance in 3T3-L1 cells. The present study investigated the anti-obesity and cardio-protective effects of SC freeze-dried gut powder using C57BL/6 as an animal model. Male mice were fed a normal chow diet, a high fat diet (HFD) or a HFD enriched with 2.5, 5 or 7.5% SC gut powder for 4, 8 and 12weeks. Diets enriched with SC caused a significant reduction in body weight gain and fat weight, compared to the HFD, without affecting food intake. Both 2.5% and 5% SC treatment showed a significant reduction in plasma glucose, triacylglycerol (TG), total cholesterol (TC) and non-esterified fatty acids, compared to the HFD. However, animals fed the 7.5% SC diet showed an increase in liver weight, liver TG and TC, compared to the HFD diet. Diets enriched with 2.5% SC caused an increase in adiponectin mRNA expression in adipose tissue and reduced plasma interleukin-6, compared to the HFD diet. Fecal cholesterol excretion increased after 2.5% SC treatment, coinciding with an increase in ATP-binding cassette-5 and -8 mRNA expression in the small intestine. Although both 2.5 and 5% SC treatment caused weight and fat reduction to a similar extent, 2.5% SC was more effective at improving the metabolic profile. None of the tested SC doses caused any toxic effects. Our findings demonstrate for the first time that SC freeze-dried gut powder has the potential as a nutraceutical to target obesity and related disorders.