Pu-erh tea, green tea, and black tea suppresses hyperlipidemia, hyperleptinemia and fatty acid synthase through activating AMPK in rats fed a high-fructose diet

Although green tea extract has been reported to suppress hyperlipidemia, it is unclear how tea extracts prepared from green, oolong, black and pu-erh teas modulate fatty acid synthase expression in rats fed on a high-fructose diet. In this animal study, we evaluated the hypolipidemic and hypoleptinemia effect of these four different tea leaves fed to male Wistar rats for 12 weeks. The results showed that a fructose-rich diet significantly elevated serum triacylglycerols, cholesterol, insulin, and leptin concentrations, as compared with those in the control group. Interestingly, consuming tea leaves for 12 weeks almost normalized the serum triacylglycerols concentrations. Again, rats fed with fructose/green tea and fructose/pu-erh tea showed the greatest reduction in serum TG, cholesterol, insulin and leptin levels. In contrast, serum cholesterol and insulin concentrations of the fructose/oolong tea-fed rats did not normalize. The relative epididymal adipose tissue weight was lower in all rats supplemented with tea leaves than those fed with fructose alone. There was molecular evidence of improved lipid homeostasis according to fatty acid synthase (FAS) protein expression. Furthermore, supplementation of green, black, and pu-erh tea leaves significantly decreased hepatic FAS mRNA and protein levels, and increased AMPK phosphorylation, compared with those of rats fed with fructose only. These findings suggest that the intake of green, black, and pu-erh tea leaves ameliorated the fructose-induced hyperlipidemia and hyperleptinemia state in part through the suppression of FAS protein levels and increased AMPK phosphorylation.