Yacon flour, a natural plant product, ameliorates visceral adiposity with beneficial metabolic effects in insulin-resistant state

HONORÉ SM; GENTA SB; SANCHEZ S.S

Rosario, Santa Fé

Simposio; XI Simposio Argentino y XIV Latinoamericano de Farmacobotánica; 2013

Sociedad Latinoamericana de Farmacobotánica

Obesity is a medical condition involving an excess accumulation of body fat and is correlated with numerous metabolic disorders among which the most relevant are diabetes, insulin-resistance, hypertension and cardiovascular diseases. Obesity management is a modern challenge because of the rapid evolution of unfavorable life styles and unfortunately there are not effective treatments to obese/overweight people. The purpose of this study was to investigate the antiobesity effect of yacon roots supplementation in high-fat/high-fructose diet-induced obese rats. Male Wistar rats were introduced to either standard (SD) or high-fat/high-fructose diet (fat 20%/ fructose 10% w/w, ad libitum, HFF). After 12 weeks on a HFF-diet, rats were randomly assigned to one of the 4 treatment conditions: HFF-diet group, HFF-diet group plus yacon(340mg/kg body weight; HFF+Y), HFF-group that began to receive an standard diet (HFF-SD) and HFF group that began to receive an standard diet plus yacon (340mg/kg body weight; HFF-SD+Y). After 8 weeks, it was observed that oral administration of yacon flour significantly reduced food intake (HFF: 21.44±1.62g/day vs. HFF-SD+Y: 17.67±1.16g/day) and food efficiency (HFF: 0.213±0.002 vs. HFF-SD+Y: -0,123±0.003); suppressed body weight gain (HFF: 101.03±17.92g vs. HFF-SD+Y: -17.52±10.12g), decreased body mass index (HFF: 0.84±0.01 vs. HFF-SD+Y: 0.71±0.07) and visceral fat accumulation. Yacon also reduced serum free-fatty acid (HFF: 1.10±0.13mmol/l vs. HFF-SD+Y: 0.87±0.15mmol/l), serum triglyceride (HFF:1.71±0.12g/l vs. HFF-SD+Y: 0.63±0.10g/l), insulin (HFF: 2.06±0.35ng/ml vs. HFF-SD+Y: 1.37±0.21ng/ml) and leptin (HFF: 12.52±0.35ng/ml vs. HFF-SD+Y: 8.45±1.07ng/ml) levels, increasing adiponectin (HFF: 2.86±0.13ng/ml vs. HFF-SD+Y: 8.21±1.06ng/ml) levels compared to the HFF-group. However, no significant changes were observed in serum total cholesterol levels between different groups. Urea and transaminases plasma levels were also reduced by yacon treatment. Histological examination revealed that yacon treatment ameliorated induced hypertrophy and hyperplasticity of adipocytes induced by HFF-diet. Our results indicated that yacon flour is effective in preventing body weight gain and fat accumulation protecting against features of the metabolic syndrome in diet-induced obese rats. Together, these observations suggest that yacon root is a potential agent to study in the management of obesity and related disorders.