Abstract
Artemisia iwayomogi(A. iwayomogi) is a major edible vegetable in Korea. A iwayomogi containing a strong bitter taste, particularly, is known to manifest an effect on cough, abdominal pain, indigestion and bleeding. In this experiment, ethanol extract of A. iwayomogi(50mg/kg body weight) was fed to growing male Sprague-Dawley rats for four weeks in order to examine the lipid lowering effect of A. iwayomogi in the live and serum. High fat diet included 10% lard, 1% cholesterol and 0.25% sodium cholate. The administration of A. iwayomogi extract decreased serum cholesterol compared with the control. At the same time, serum triglyceride(TG) was decreased to 25%. Although atherogenic index and HTR tended to decrease, phospholipid level in the serum was shown to increase by A. iwayomogi administration. At the same token, total liver lipids were decreased to 40%. The group fed both high fat and ethanol extract showed 28% decrease of liver lipids compared with the group fed only high fat diet. On the other hand, HDL cholesteol level of high fat and extract fed group was increased to 30% compared with the non-extract-fed control. Liver TG also was decreased to about 21% in the extract fed groups. Liver phospholipids, particularly, exceeded more than double of the level of high fat control. The above results indicate than A. iwayomogi exert a strong hypocholesterolemic and hypolipidemic effect which may lead to the protection from hypertention, obesity, stroke and many other circulatory diseases.
