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Study Title:

Diet enriched with korean pine nut oil improves mitochondrial oxidative metabolism

Study Abstract

In this study, we investigated effects of pine nut oil (PNO) on high-fat-diet (HFD)-induced obesity and metabolic dysfunction in skeletal muscle and brown adipose tissue (BAT). Male C57BL/6 mice were fed a HFD with 15% energy from lard and 30% energy from either soybean oil (SBO-HFD) or PNO (PNO-HFD) for 12 weeks. The PNO-HFD resulted in less weight gain and intramuscular lipid accumulation than the SBO-HFD and was accompanied by upregulation of transcripts and proteins related to oxidative metabolism and phosphorylation of AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK), as well as molecules selectively expressed in type I and type IIa muscle fibers. In addition, uncoupling protein-1 was upregulated in BAT. These beneficial metabolic effects were partly associated with the dual ligand activity of pinolenic acid, which is abundant in PNO, for peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors α and δ. Our findings suggest that PNO may have potential as a dietary supplement for counteracting obesity and metabolic dysregulation.

Study Information

Le NH, Shin S, Tu TH, Kim CS, Kang JH, Tsuyoshi G, Teruo K, Han SN, Yu R.
Diet enriched with korean pine nut oil improves mitochondrial oxidative metabolism in skeletal muscle and brown adipose tissue in diet-induced obesity.
J Agric Food Chem.
2012 December
Department of Food Science and Nutrition, University of Ulsan, Ulsan 680-749, South Korea.