Effects of yam dioscorin interventions on improvements of the metabolic syndrome in high-fat diet-induced obese rats

BACKGROUND: The metabolic syndrome (MS) is termed a cluster of multiple metabolic risk criteria which is positively correlated with cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM). Yam dioscorins have been reported to exhibit biological activities, however, little is known their preventive effects on the MS. Therefore, a high-fat (HF) diet was used to induce Wistar rat obesity and then yam dioscorin (50 mg/kg, dio50) was intervened daily concurrent HF diet (HF diet + dio50) for five weeks to check the changes of weights of body and tissues, blood pressures, and impaired glucose tolerances. The in vitro peptic hydrolysates of dioscorin with molecular mass between 3 kDa and 10 kDa and less than 3 kDa were used to determine dipeptidyl peptidase IV (DPP IV) inhibitory activities which DPP IV inhibitor has been reported to prevent and treat type 2 DM. RESULTS: There were no significant difference in body weights, feed intakes, feed conversion, and weights of adipose tissues of obese rats in groups of HF and (HF diet + dio50). However, the systolic blood pressures in obese rats of 2-, 3- and 4-week dioscorin interventions were showed significantly lower (P < 0.05) compared to the HF group. The dioscorin intervention (HF+ dio50) was showed significantly different (P < 0.05) and improved the impaired glucose tolerances compared to HF group in obese rats by the oral glucose tolerance tests. It was also found that the fraction with different molecular mass of dioscorin peptic hydrolysates (5 mg/ml) showed inhibitory activities against DPP IV using sitagliptin phosphate as positive controls. CONCLUSIONS: Yam dioscorins exhibit improved MS activities in obese rats which the related mechanisms may need further investigations. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s40529-015-0084-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.