LGZG comprises four Chinese herbs: Poria (20 g), Ramulus Cinnamomi (15 g), Rhizoma Atractylodis Macrocephalae (15 g), and Radix Glycyrrhizae (10 g). The dosage is determined according to the text book of The Hndouts of Jingui Yaolue [10 ]. All herbs were purchased from Longhua Hospital affiliated to Shanghai University of TCM. Herbal decoction was prepared in accordance with conventional TCM decocting methods, briefly, (1) place all herbs in a cooking pot (porcelain) with 500 mL water; (2) boil the herbs with highest heat after 30 minutes of soak; (3) reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes; (4) transfer the liquid by filtration; (5) add water and boil the remaining, and then repeat (3) and (4) one more time to make a second dose of medicine; (6) mix the two doses in a glass pot. The final concentrated decoction is 100 mL (pure solution). Quality was control under high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) as previously described [11 ], and details were shown in Supplement 1 (see Supplementary Material available online at http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2013/429738 ). LGZG was administered at a dose of 10 mL/kg/d (pure solution), which was approximately 7 times of the standard dose in practice, according to the dose-equivalence equation between rats and humans [12 ]. Meanwhile, the following formulas were prepared based on the herbal combination rule: Lingguizhugan Decoction without Ramulus Cinnamomi (LZG, Poria, Rhizoma Atractylodis Macrocephalae, Radix Glycyrrhizae), Lingguizhugan Decoction without Poria (GZG, Ramulus Cinnamomi, Atractylodis Macrocephalae, Radix Glycyrrhizae), Lingguizhugan Decoction without Rhizoma Atractylodis Macrocephalae and Radix Glycyrrhizae (LG, Poria, Ramulus Cinnamomi). Methods used in decoction and quality control were the same as that used in LGZG, and equal doses were administered. Ordinary diet and HFD (consists of 10% lard oil, 2% cholesterol, and 88% STD) were obtained from Shanghai Si-Lai-Ke Experimental Animal Ltd. (Shanghai, China).
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