Anti-obesity and Hypolipidemic Effects of Morus alba - A Review

The prevalence of obesity was worldwide increase in the last 60 years. Obesity represented one of the public healthproblems, it markedly increased the incidence of many diseases:fatty liver,type 2 diabetes, hypertension, ischemic heart diseases, sleep apnea, osteoporosis, dementia, tumors and many other disorders.Recent reviews showed that many medicinal plants possesses anti-obesity effect.In the current review, PubMed, Web Science, Science Direct, Researchgate, Academia.edu and Scopus were searched to verify thehypolipidemic and anti-obesity activities of Morusalba .

The aqueous extract of Mulberry leaves at a dose of 150 mg/kg/day, for 14 days, significantly decreased the triglycerides level by 55.01% in rats on high cholesterol diet (26) . compared to water-treated rats (28) .
The accumulation oflipid in the liver was decreased by Morus alba leaves extract, the number and the sizeof lipid droplets in hepatocytes were significantlyless than that in the control (22,24) . acid β-oxidation (23,29) .
Moracin isolated from the leaves of Morus alba inhibited lipid peroxidation which strongly indicated its role as scavenger (26) . 15%, respectively. In addition, the treatmentalso significantly decreased the hepatic accumulation of lipids and the blood glucose levels (34) .
The effect of leaves extract on oxidative stress induced by obesity, in addition to its effect on lipogenesis, hepatic fibrosis, was investigated in obese mice fed high-fat diet (HFD). The extract significantly decreased LXRα-mediated lipogenesis and hepatic fibrosis markers and up-regulated lipolysis-associated markers. Moreover, the extract restoredthe antioxidant enzymes activities in the HFD-fed mice (35) .
The benefit of synergismbetween β-glucan and the leaf extract of mulberry on metabolic health were studied inmice fed high fat diet. β-glucanadministration significantlydecreasedlipid profile, fat mass, fatty liver, body weight gain, insulin, and inflammatory markers. On the other hand, the administration of mulberry leaf extract possessed an efficacy similar to that of β-glucan (Ecept the effect on weight gain).
Furthermore, a mixture of β-glucan and mulberry leaf extract showed synergism in improvement of insulin sensitivity (36) .
The effect on food intake and weight of flavonoid The apoptotic death appeared to be mediated by ERK and p38 signallingstimulation, which indicated that the polysaccharide was able to decrease the adipose tissue mass and the fat cells number via inhibition of proliferation of preadipocyte (38) . Blood glucose and seruminsulin growth factor-1, leptin and non-esterified fatty acid, were significantly declined, while, serum adiponectin was increased significantly (39) .  (42) .
The current review discuss its hypolipidemic and antiobesity effect. Morusalbacaused appetite suppression and exerted hypolipidemic and antiobesity effect by many mechanisms. Furthermore the toxicological studies revealed that Morusalbais an edible and very save remedy. It is a promising medical therapy with wide range of pharmacological effects.

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