Evaluation of Whitlowia Extract and Metformin in Mice

WL was prepared and supplied by NUTRACORE (Suwon, Korea). Metformin hydrochloride (Wako, Osaka, Japan) was used as the reference recommended drug. In this study, 200 mg/kg was selected as the highest WL dose according to the previous study [27 (link)]; the middle and lowest WL doses were 100 and 50 mg/kg using common ratio 2. The administration volume was 10 mL/kg, which is the general dosing volume for mice [28 ]. The dose level of metformin was 250 mg/kg; this was chosen based on the results in our previous animal studies [13 (link),16 (link),29 (link),30 (link)]. WL was dissolved in distilled water as concentration of 20, 10, and 5 mg/mL, and administered through the oral route once per day for 84 days using a stainless-steel gastric gavage device attached to syringe, beginning 1 week after the HFD was offered. Metformin was dissolved in distilled water, which was used in the intact and HFD vehicle control mice for oral-administration.