Figure 1.

Protocols of type 2 diabetes induction and G. lucidum supplement diets treatment

Sprague-Dawley (SD) rats were injected with nicotinamide and streptozotocin (STZ) to induce type 2 diabetes. After 1 week, oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT) was performed to verify the successful induction of diabetes. The rats in the normal control (NC) group did not receive any treatment throughout the experiment. Diabetic rats were randomly divided to 5 groups (n = 8), including diabetic control fed with high-cholesterol diet (DC), diabetic rats fed with high-cholesterol diet containing 1% freeze-dried whole submerged culture of G. lucidum (1G), diabetic rats fed with high-cholesterol diet containing 3% freeze dried whole submerged culture of G. lucidum (3G), diabetic rats fed with high-cholesterol diet containing 1% freeze dried mycelia from submerged culture of G. lucidum (1M) and diabetic rats fed with high-cholesterol diet containing 3% freeze dried mycelia from submerged culture of G. lucidum (3M). Except for the rats in NC and DC groups, the other rats were daily fed with G. lucidum supplement diets daily for 5 weeks as described in Materials and methods. The amount of food intake and body weight were measured weekly. All rats were sacrificed at week 6 to harvest the samples of blood, faeces, liver and adipose tissues for further analysis