Anti-obesity effects of Spirulina maxima in high fat diet induced obese rats via the activation of AMPK pathway and SIRT1.

To evaluate the anti-obesity effect of Spirulina maxima (SM), obese rats fed with a high-fat diet for 6 weeks were orally treated with SM or green tea extract (GTE, positive control) for an additional 4 weeks. The results demonstrated that the administration of SM not only prevented weight gain and reduced the index of white adipose tissues, but also attenuated changes of metabolic parameters in serum, such as adiponectin, leptin, TNF-α, glucose, insulin and lipid profile. Furthermore, an increase of adipocyte size was also inhibited by treatment with SM. In mesenteric white adipose tissue and skeletal muscle, the administration of SM activated AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) pathway and sirtuin 1 (SIRT1), leading to the suppression of the development of pathophysiological mechanism associated with obesity, including promoted lipid synthesis and blocked lipid oxidation. Taken together, SM improves obese phenotype induced by the consumption of a high-fat diet, suggesting that SM might be a potential agent to prevent or treat obesity.