High fat diet (hfd)

Male C57BL/6 mice, 6 weeks of age, were purchased from SLAC Animal Laboratories (Shanghai, China). After one-week acclimatization, the mice were divided into 3 groups: the chow group (n = 10) received standard control diet (SLAC Animal Laboratories, Shanghai, China); HFD group (n = 6) received HFD (60% of calories derived from fat, Research Diets, NJ, USA); the HF-DSS group (n = 26) received HFD supplemented with 1% DSS (MP Biomedicals, Solon, OH, USA) in drinking water. DSS was given in cycles; each cycle consisted of a 7-day DSS administration followed by a 10-day interval with normal drinking water. After 12 weeks of feeding, HFD group mice and 6 mice from the HF-DSS group were sacrificed to evaluate the model. The remaining HF-DSS mice were further divided into 2 groups: HF-DSS group (n = 10) remained on HF-DSS diet, while mice in treatment group (n = 10) were given the SNN extracts (750 mg/kg) for 4 weeks by gavage.
The body weight and food intake of the mice were recorded at every DSS treatment cycle. The animal protocols were performed in accordance with the guidelines with approval of the Animal Experiment Ethics Committee at Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine.