Assessing the bioefficacy of conventional solvent and supercritical fluid extracts of green tea to alleviate lifestyle related dysfunctions

Abstract Background Nowadays, consumers are focusing on therapeutic diets that not only serve the purpose of basic nutrition but also possess varied ingredients to fight against free radical mediated malfunctions especially cardiac disorders and type 2 diabetes. In this context, green tea polycatechins need to be introduced in the dietary regimens as per their effective level. Keeping in view, the present study was aimed to assess the hypocholesterolemic and hypoglycemic potential of conventional and supercritical fluid extracted green tea polycatechins, using male Sprague Dawley rats. Methods The in vivo study was carried out for 60 days to check the response of green tea extract based diets on animal body and serum biomarkers. Three animal trials were conducted; Study I (Normal rats), Study II (hyperglycemic rats) and Study III (hypercholesterolemic rats). Each study was further sectioned into three groups based on dietary modules; control diet, functional diet (enriched with solvent extracted green tea polycatechins) and nutraceutical diet (carrying supercritical fluid extracted green tea polycatechins). Results The decrease in cholesterol, triacylglycerol, low density lipoprotein-cholesterol (LDL-c) and glucose was viewed among all groups along with increment in high density lipoproteins-cholesterol (HDL-c) and insulin levels. Furthermore, green tea nutraceutical diet showed an upper hand in ameliorating lifestyle related disorders as compared to functional diet. Though, marked decrement in lipid biomarkers especially cholesterol (15.22%) and LDL-c (20.50%) were found in Study III (hypercholesterolemic rats), whereas highest suppression in glucose (12.71%) and improvement in insulin (8.28%) was obviously recorded in Study II (hyperglycemic rats). Conclusion Green tea polycatechins based diets have proven their efficacy in mitigating hypercholesterolemia and hyperglycemia induced by cholesterol and sucrose based dietary regimen