Research Paper Volume 12, Issue 13 pp 13128—13146
Long-term low-dose ethanol intake improves healthspan and resists high-fat diet-induced obesity in mice
- 1 Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Harbin Medical University, Harbin, China
- 2 Department of Clinical Laboratory, Heilongjiang Province Hospital, Harbin, China
- 3 Translational Medicine Center of Northern China, Harbin, China
- 4 Department of Clinical Laboratory, Harbin Medical University Cancer Hospital, Harbin, China
- 5 Key Laboratory of Preservation of Human Genetic Resources and Disease Control in China, Ministry of Education, China
Received: January 18, 2020 Accepted: May 1, 2020 Published: July 8, 2020
https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.103401How to Cite
Copyright © 2020 Diao et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
Numerous epidemiological studies have reported that moderate alcohol drinking has beneficial effects. However, few studies have focused on the beneficial effects of ethanol, the common component in alcoholic beverages. Here we fed the C57BL/6 mice with 3.5% v/v ethanol as drinking water substitute to investigate the effects of long-term low-dose ethanol intake in vivo. We evaluated the metabolic rate and mitochondrial function of the long-term low-dose ethanol-intake (LLE) mice, assessed the exercise ability of LLE mice, and fed the LLE mice with a high-fat diet to investigate the potential impact of ethanol on it. The LLE mice showed improved thermogenic activity, physical performance, and mitochondrial function, as well as resistance against the high-fat diet-induced obesity with elevated insulin sensitivity and subdued inflammation. Our results suggest that long-term low-dose ethanol intake can improve healthspan and resist high-fat diet-induced obesity in mice. It may provide new insight into understanding the protective effects of moderate alcohol drinking.