The role of selenium and zinc oxide nanoparticles on mitigating side effects of obesity in rats

Obesity and related diseases represent greatest threats to human health. Nanoparticles (NPs) serve to reduce toxicity; reinforce bioactivity and improve targeting. This study was intended to investigate the antiobesity and antioxidant activities of selenium and zinc oxide nanoparticles.

Twenty four adult male rats were divided into four groups, group1 control rats fed normal diet and the other three groups were fed high fat diet (HFD) for 10 weeks to induce obesity and injected intraperitoneally with saline, SeNPs (30μg/kg b.wt) and ZnONPs (5mg/kg b.wt) respectively on the last two weeks of feeding (9th and 10th).

HFD increased body weight, oxidative stress as indicated by elevated lipid peroxidation and decreased glutathione and catalase levels, increased significantly serum lipid fractions, leptin, liver enzymes, creatinine and uric acid. While causing a substantial decrease in HDL-C and thyroid hormone T4 levels. The results confirmed that treatment with SeNPs and ZnONPs significantly reduced body weight, MDA and improved liver and kidney functions, ameliorated serum lipid fractions level and significantly increased glutathione, catalase, HDL-C and thyroid hormone.

SeNPs and ZnONPs significantly mitigate hyperlipidemia and oxidative stress. So, they might be potential candidate for obesity amelioration.