Abstract: The incidence rate of abnormal glucose and lipid metabolism rised rapidly in China. The aging population, changes in diet patterns and lifestyles and other factors jointly aggravate the prevalence of abnormal glucose and lipid metabolism. Overweight, obesity, diabetes, dyslipidemia, and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease are typical abnormal glucose and lipid metabolism, which are important risk factors for cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases. In recent years, the role of tea in improving glucose and lipid metabolism has received more attention. This article explores the health improvement effect of a ripened (shou) Pu-erh tea on people with abnormal glucose and lipid metabolism. The ripened (shou) Pu-erh tea is Y562, a listed product of Yunnan Chin Tea Industry Co., Ltd. Through recruiting 45 qualified drinking volunteers, using a nutritional epidemiological clinical intervention study design, drinking the ripened (shou) Pu-erh tea for 3 months, testing and compareing the volunteers’ body composition (weight, body mass index, body fat ratio, visceral fat), body circumference (waist circumference, hip circumference, neck circumference), blood glucose (fasting blood glucose, fasting insulin, fasting C-peptide, glycosylated hemoglobin), blood lipids (total cholesterol, triglycerides, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, apolipoprotein A1, and apolipoprotein B), blood uric acid, liver fat content and gut microbiota before and after drinking tea, and then explore the health benefits of this ripened (shou) Pu-erh tea. The results showed that after drinking Y562 ripened (shou) Pu-erh tea for 3 months, the body weight, body mass index, waist circumference, hip circumference, neck circumference, blood lipids (high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, apolipoprotein A1, and apolipoprotein B),and liver fat content of the trial drinking volunteers significantly decreased (P<0.05), while, blood glucose (fasting blood glucose, fasting insulin, insulin resistance, fasting C-peptide, glycosylated hemoglobin), triglycerides, blood uric acid improved, but the difference was not statistically significant, and gut microbiota improved, the uniformity increased, abundances of genus/species g_Lactobacillus, g_Clostridium, s_Akkermansia muciniphila, s_Clostridium screenens, s_Streptococcus thermophilus increase, while genus/species g_Streptococcus, g_Lactococcus, g_Bacteroides, g_Bifidobacterium, s_Paraacteroides distasonis decrease. The study suggests that Y562 ripened (shou) Pu-erh tea has the effect of assisting in weight loss, improving body shape, lowering blood glucose and lipids, improving liver function, and non-alcoholic fatty liver. Possible mechanisms may be theabrownine of ripened (shou) Pu-erh tea can regulate the bile acids by inhibiting gut microbiota related to bile-salthydrolase activity and promoting the product of non 12-hydroxybile acids, thereby causing a decrease in fat production and improving glucose and lipid metabolism.

Key words: ripened (shou) Pu-erh tea, glucose and lipid metabolism, gut microbiota, bile acids