Ethnopharmacological relevance: Pyrostegia venusta is used in traditional Brazilian medicine as a general tonic to treat any inflammatory disease. Several studies have demonstrated that medicinal plants constitute a therapeutic approach for the treatment of obesity-related metabolic and inflammatory disarrangement. Accordingly, we investigated the effects of hydroethanolic extract of Pyrostegia venusta flowers (PvHE) supplementation for the treatment of inflammatory and metabolic dysfunction induced by high-refined-carbohydrate (HC) diet.
Material and methods: The BALB/c mice were fed chow or HC diet for 8 weeks. Part of these animals was fed with HC diet supplemented with PvHE on the 9th week until the 12th week. At the end of the dietary intervention, animals were sacrificed.
Results: We observed that PvHE decreased adiposity and adipocyte area; improved glucose intolerance; reduced serum triacylglycerol levels and systemic inflammatory cells; and also reduced some inflammatory mediators levels in adipose tissue and liver.
Conclusion: The results showed that PvHE has beneficial effects and may treat inflammatory and metabolic dysfunction induced by HC diet, that are associated to a negative modulation of the inflammatory process at systemic and local levels.
Keywords: High-refined-carbohydrate diet; Inflammation; Metabolism; Obesity; Pyrostegia venusta.
© 2013 Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd.