RETRACTED: Evaluation of Anti-Obesity Activity, Acute Toxicity, and Subacute Toxicity of Probiotic Dark Tea

Abstract

Probiotic dark tea (PDT) is a novel kind of dark tea produced by fresh albino tea leaves and fermented with specific probiotics. Our study demonstrates that PDT can ameliorate high-fat diet-induced overweight and lipid metabolic disorders and shows no acute or subacute toxicity in Sprague-Dawley (SD) rats. Daily intragastric administration of 5% PDT infusion for 14 days caused no obvious effect on general physiological features and behaviors of rats. Oral administration of 1%, 2%, and 3% of PDT infusion for six weeks had no influence on the biochemistry and histopathology of rats’ organs and blood, as well as the body weight and ratios of organ/body weight. To investigate its anti-obesity activity, SD rats were randomly divided into four groups, treated with normal diet + water (Group I), high-fat diet + water (Group II), high-fat diet + 3% traditional dark tea infusion (Group III), high-fat diet + 3% PDT infusion (Group IV). After six weeks, the body weight, serum total triacylglycerol (TG) and serum total cholesterol (TC) levels of rats in Group II were significantly increased and the high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL) levels were significantly decreased compared with those in the other three groups. Both traditional dark tea and PDT treatment effectively counteracted the adverse effect of a high-fat diet in SD rats. These results suggest that PDT could be applied for the prevention of obesity, which ameliorates overweight and lipid metabolic disorders and which shows no acute or subacute toxicity.

Improving the Gut Microbiota with Probiotics and Faecal Microbiota Transplantation

“…The antiobesity consequence of probiotic dark tea was assessed in high-fat diet fed Sprague-Dawley (SD) rats. Probiotic dark tea lowered the body weight rise, serum triglycerol levels and serum total glycerol levels in extraordinary fat diet SD rats 86 . It is also shown that obesity is linked with increased Firmicutes, while the concentration of Bacteroidetes is reduced in obese patients 87 .…”

Anticancer Activity of Polysaccharides Produced from Glycerol and Crude Glycerol by an Endophytic Fungus Chaetomium globosum CGMCC 6882 on Human Lung Cancer A549 Cells

“…In the past decades, many studies have shown that G. pentaphyllum has a variety of biological activities, such as anticancer, anti-tumor, anti-gastric ulcer, anti-inflammation, cardio-protection and strengthening the immune system [6]. Although the G. pentaphyllum herb contains the active ingredients saponin, amino acids, flavonoids, essential oils and polysaccharides, polysaccharides may have greater bioavailability than others because they are water soluble and can be easily soaked out into a tea infusion [7,8]. Many evidences have shown that the polysaccharide components obtained from G. pentaphyllum herbs exhibited significant bioactivities, including antioxidant, anti-cancer, anti-tumor, anti-aging, immunomodulatory and anti-exercise fatigue effects [5].…”

RETRACTED: Ling et al. Evaluation of Anti-Obesity Activity, Acute Toxicity, and Subacute Toxicity of Probiotic Dark Tea. Biomolecules 2018, 8, 99

“…The Biomolecules Editorial Office has been made aware that the published paper [1] was previously published in chinese in China Tea Processing by the same authors [2]. In order to preserve academic integrity, the title paper [1] will be marked as retracted. We apologize to the readership of Biomolecules for any inconvenience caused.…”

“…We apologize to the readership of Biomolecules for any inconvenience caused. The decision to retract has been made in cooperation with the authors of the article [1].…”

“…MDPI is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics and takes the responsibility to enforce strict ethical policies and standards very seriously. To ensure the addition of only high quality scientific works to the field of scholarly publication, [1] is retracted and shall be marked accordingly.…”