ArticleFrontiers in nutrition2025
Betaine alleviates obesity-related metabolic disorders in rats: insights from microbiomes, lipidomics, and transcriptomics.
Article in Frontiers in nutrition, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Antidiabetic and Anti-Obesity Effects of Betalains: A Systematic Review of Preclinical Evidence.Molecular nutrition & food research · 2026Pooled it
- Prenatal Methyl Nutrient Availability Shapes Mesolimbic Dopaminergic Circuitry and Systemic Inflammation in Wistar Rat Offspring of Both Sexes.Journal of neurochemistry · 2026Article
- Exercise-mimicking effects of betaine in chronic disease prevention and management.Frontiers in nutrition · 2025Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Background: Betaine is a natural food component that plays an important role in improving body composition, but the details of its effects on adipose tissue remains to be elucidated. Here, we hypothesize that betaine can alleviate obesity-related metabolic disorders, thus gut microbiota, transcriptomics and lipidomics were used to investigate the obesity-alleviating effects of betaine on high-fat diet (HFD)-fed rats. Methods: In this study, rats fed a HFD were subjected to an 8-week oral intervention with betaine. We measured changes in body weight (BW), blood lipid profiles, and gastrointestinal hormones to assess therapeutic effects. The epididymal white adipose tissue was extracted and stained to evaluate the pathological morphology of adipocytes. The structure of the rat gut microbiota and the expression profiles of lipid metabolism-related genes in adipocytes were analyzed using 16S rRNA sequencing and transcriptomics. Furthermore, the lipid metabolomics of adipose tissue samples was investigated using an LC-MS analysis platform. Results: Our findings imply that betaine has been linked to the alleviation of community alterations in gut microbiota resulting from HFD, facilitating the proliferation of beneficial microbiota (e.g., Lactobacillu, Lachnospiraceae_NK4A136_group) and the generation of short-chain fatty acids (SCFA). Particularly, our results indicate that betaine treatment led to notable variations in the content of DHA-riched glycerophospholipids which exhibited a positive correlation with the secretion of intestinal hormone (e.g., cholecystokininand peptide YY). Additionally, betaine upregulated the expression of genes related to thermogenesis and glycerophospholipids metabolic pathways in the adipose tissues. Conclusion: Our findings indicate that betaine has the potential to decrease HFD-related obesity by regulating adipose tissue metabolism and promote the synthesis of polyunsaturated phospholipid rich in DHA. The underlying mechanism of betaine action might encompass its influence on gut microbiota modulation and SCFA metabolism.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What Socratic holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.