OGIRC

University of Guelph

Dept. Human Health and Nutritional Science

Our research objective is to address the potential therapeutic potential of an ethanol extract of Ontario-grown North American ginseng within the context of metabolic syndrome.  Our interests can be largely divided into in vitro and in vivo objectives.  Using cultured mouse hepatocytes we have investigated whether this extract can alleviate the triglyceride accumulation associated with choline deficiency using Oil Red O staining.  We have also employed the Pcyt2 deficient mouse, a novel model of metabolic syndrome (i.e. characterized by adult-onset obesity, hypertriglyceridemia, insulin-resistance, hepatic steatosis) to further delineate these beneficial effects.  A preliminary trial was concluded on June 30th, 2009, in which we orally administered 200 mg/kg of the ginseng extract to Pcyt2 deficient mice and their littermate controls for the previous 4 weeks.  The intention of this trial was to investigate the sufficiency of the dose and duration of the trial.  In this regard, our immediate goals will be to evaluate and present this recently gathered data, specifically probing for any dampening of weight gain, alterations to food intake, improvement in plasma triglycerides, favourable changes to the serum cytokine profile and reduced accumulation of hepatic lipids.   Moreover, we have harvested multiple tissues (i.e. liver, adipose, small intestine, heart, muscle), with the intention of investigating altered gene expression in these metabolically important organs as a potential intermediary of the possible effects described above.