Ursolic acid and rosiglitazone combination alleviates metabolic syndrome in high fat diet fed C57BL/6J mice.

The aim of this study was to examine the combined effect of ursolic acid (UA) and rosiglitazone (RSG) on metabolic syndrome in C57BL/6J mice. Upon feeding high fat diet (HFD) C57BL/6J mice developed obesity, insulin resistance, dyslipidemia and hypertension. The male mice were randomly divided into six groups, and fed normal diet, normal diet plus UA and RSG, HFD alone, HFD plus UA, HFD plus RSG, and HFD plus UA and RSG, respectively. HFD fed mice showed increase in body weight, elevated plasma glucose and insulin. Activities of gluconeogenic enzymes such as glucose 6-phosphatase, fructose 1,6-bisphosphatase increased while the activity of glycolytic enzyme, glucokinase, decreased in the liver along with glycogen content. Total cholesterol, triglyceride, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol and very low-density lipoprotein cholesterol and free fatty acid levels significantly increased in the plasma, whereas high-density lipoprotein cholesterol significantly decreased in high fat diet fed mice. In addition, both systolic and diastolic blood pressure was increased significantly. Combined treatment with UA and RSG improved the above parameters towards normality and pronounced more responses than UA or RSG lone treatment. The inclusion of UA in treatment with RSG may reduce the body weight gain, one of adverse side effect associated with the RSG-therapy.