Abstract
Background and Objective: Obesity is a chronic, multifactorial disease that develops from the interaction of behavioral, physiological, metabolic, cellular and molecular factors. High fat diet produces a consistent and significant increase (p<0.05) in body fat content which is dependent on both the amount of fat in the diet and the duration of feeding. So, this study was aimed to investigate the effects of ginger extract on obesity and hepatosteatosis in obese rats-induced by high fat diet and its capability of antioxidants-rich ginger extract in protecting rats against obesity complications. Materials and Methods: The study continued for eight weeks and the animal groups consisted of 80 male Wistar rats which were distributed equally among four groups. Body and fat weight, hepatic enzymes, anti-oxidant enzymes, oxidative stress marker, lipid profile, hepatic histopathological and ultrastructure investigations were recorded. Results: High Fat Diet (HFD) treated group exhibited a significant decrease (p<0.05) in antioxidant enzymes and High-Density Lipoprotein (HDL). Also, subjects in this group exhibited a significant increase (p<0.05) in liver enzymes, malondialdehyde (MDA), Total Cholesterol (TC) and triglycerides (TG). Additionally, concurrent exposure to HFD and treated with ginger extract significantly showed the protective potential of ginger extract in restoring the altered antioxidants, lipid profile and other biochemical analysis. Furthermore, Rats treated with HFD and protected with ginger extract improved the histopathological changes induced in the liver by obesity and showed that the hepatocytes with normal nucleus, large number of mitochondria and well developed Rough Endoplasmic Reticulum (RER) reflected the activity of the cell to produce high amount of proteins needed for normal differentiation. Conclusion: The extract of ginger showed noteworthy protection from the HFD-induced metabolic disturbances by strongly suppressing the body weight gain, oxidative stress and hyperlipidemia. Thus the present findings emphasize that the rhizome of Z. officinale possesses potential medicinal values.