Abstract: The hypolipidemic activity of hemp seed peptide was investigated by animal tests. Sixty male SD rats were randomly divided into the normal group with 10 rats and the model group with 50 rats after one week of adaptive feeding. The rats in the normal group were fed a basic diet and the rats in the model group were fed a high-fat diet (HFD) to induce hyperlipidemia for four weeks of feeding. After successful modeling, the model rats were randomly divided into model control, positive control (simvastatin at 10 mg/kg mb), and low-, medium-, and high-dose hemp seed peptide groups (200, 400, and 800 mg/kg mb) with 10 animals each. The route of administration was by intragastric gavage. After 4 weeks of feeding, body mass, visceral organ index, blood rheology, and serum total cholesterol (TC), triglyceride (TG), low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), alanine aminotransferase (ALT) and aspartate aminotransferase (AST) were measured, and morphological changes in the liver of the rats were observed. The results obtained showed that hemp seed peptide could inhibit body mass gain in high-fat diet-fed rats, reduce serum TC, TG, LDL-C, ALT and AST and liver index and atherosclerosis index (AI) and augment serum HDL-C. In addition, it could improve blood rheology such as reducing whole blood viscosity and plasma viscosity and the fatty degeneration of the liver. In conclusion, hemp seed peptide has a lipid-lowering effect in HFD rats.

Key words: hemp seed peptide; hyperlipidemia; hypolipidemic effect