Writing in the Journal of Food & Drug Analysis, scientists report that animals fed the Citrus depressa peel ethanol extract (CDEE) and a high-fat diet also had less fat tissue levels and better cholesterol levels compared to animals only fed a high-fat diet.
Analysis of the gut microbiota revealed that the citrus extract-fed animals also had higher abundance of Limosilactobacillus reuteri compared to non-supplemented animals.
“L. reuteri is a well-studied probiotic bacterium that showed that CDEE might have a prebiotic-like effect to prevent lipid accumulation because of its flavonoid content,” wrote scientists from Chung Yuan Christian University, the National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University and the National Ilan University.
The current consensus definition from the International Scientific Association for Probiotics and Prebiotics (ISAPP) is: “A substrate that is selectively utilized by host microorganisms conferring a health benefit.”
Study details
The Taiwanese researchers reported that the Citrus depressa peel extract was found to contain different flavonoids including hesperidin, nobiletin, tangeretin, sinensentin, 5-demethyl-nobiletin and 5-demethyltangeretin.
They then tested this extract in lab mice fed a high-fat diet (HFD) and compared the results to lab mice only fed the HFD. After 12 weeks of supplementation, the researchers found that the HFD-CDEE group had a significantly lower (0.8%) weight gain compared to the HFD only animals.
In addition, the HFD-CDEE group had significantly lower levels of total cholesterol, HDL- and LDL-cholesterol, but they also had higher levels of triglycerides than the HFD-only mice.
No significant differences were detected for levels of AST (aspartate aminotransferase), said the researchers. “AST is a crucial liver toxicity index; thus, the result obtained proved that mice administered with CDEE did not experience liver damage,” they stated.
An increase in the abundance of L. reuteri was also reported, compared to the HFD group.
“In this study, CDEE demonstrated prebiotic potential by reacting with L. reuteri to ameliorate the adverse effects caused by an HFD,” the researchers wrote, with additional analysis revealing that the “bacterial composition of the HFD-CDEE groups had a higher abundance related to carbohydrate transport and metabolism and a lower abundance related to lipid transport and metabolism compared with the HFD group.”
Source: Journal of Food & Drug Analysis
2024; 32(2): 213–226, doi: 10.38212/2224-6614.3504
“Citrus depressa peel extract acts as a prebiotic to reduce lipid accumulation and modulate gut microbiota in obese mice”
Authors: Z-Y. Su et al.