Research Article Deepure Tea Improves High Fat Diet-Induced Insulin Resistance and Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease

Copyright © 2015 Jing-Na Deng et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. This study was to explore the protective effects of Deepure tea against insulin resistance and hepatic steatosis and elucidate the potential underlyingmolecular mechanisms. C57BL/6mice were fed with a high fat diet (HFD) for 8 weeks to induce themetabolic syndrome. In the Deepure tea group, HFD mice were administrated with Deepure tea at 160mg/kg/day by gavage for 14 days. The mice in HFD group received water in the same way over the same period. The age-matched C57BL/6 mice fed with standard chow were used as normal control. Compared to the mice in HFD group, mice that received Deepure tea showed significantly reduced plasma insulin and improved insulin sensitivity. Deepure tea increased the expression of insulin receptor substrate 2 (IRS-2), which plays an important role in hepatic insulin signaling pathway. Deepure tea also led to a decrease in hepatic fatty acid synthesis and lipid accumulation, which were mediated by the downregulation of sterol regulatory element binding protein 1c (SREBP-1c), fatt