Effects of chickpea (Cicer arietinum) on metabolic dysfunction by modulation of gut microbiota in diet-induced obese mice - 農業知識入口網

Abstract

The high prevalence of obesity is a major public health issue in modern societies. Visceral obesity has been shown to be closely associated with chronic
inflammation, which may result in insulin  resistance, type two diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and fatty liver diseases. Food enters the gastrointestinal
(GI) tract and interact with the microbiota therein. Recent studies have shown that  an imbalance of the intestinal microbiota contributes to inflammation,
obesity, and several metabolic disorders. The health benefits of healthy food have received great attention in recent years.  Chickpea (Cicer arietinum) is
reported to be a healthy ready-to-eat food, which is rich in fiber and bioactive compounds. Therefore, an animal model of metabolic syndrome, mice with
a high-fat  diet (HFD), was used in this study to examine the effect of chickpea as healthy supplement on modulation of gut microbiota. Our results
indicated that chickpea (CP) inhibited hyperlipidemia in  HFD-induced obese mice. In addition, the CP supplementation attenuated hepatic lipid
accumulation and showed the effect on improving kidney function. By analysis of gut microbiota, the β  diversity and NMDS revealed a distinct clustering
of microbiota composition for each treatment group. CP mice were more abundant in Clostridium saccharolyticum and Butyricicoccus  pullicaecorum, and
the genus level of Coprococcus and Butyricicoccus, compared with the HFD group and these bacteria were reported to a depletion in obese individuals
and even possessed the antiinflammatory capabilities. We also used the Sorenson index (Sørensen–Dice index) to measure the similarity between
microbiota at different diet, and showed the similarity of gut  microbiota composition between each groups varied greatly. These results indicate that CP
has promising bioactivity in regulating hyperlipidemia, hepatic steatosis and kidney function by  modulating the composition of the gut microbiota.