The Effect of Lycium Barbarum Polysaccharide on the Glucose and Lipid Metabolism: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Abstract

Goji berry has been used in China more than 2,000 years as a traditional medicinal herb and food supplement. Lycium barbarum polysaccharide (LBP), the chief active component in goji berry, has been used to treat hypertension, atherosclerosis and other cardiovascular diseases in Chinese traditional medicine. However, the underlying effects of LBP- mediated activity in blood glucose and lipid metabolism remain poorly understood. The present study aims to apply the meta-analysis to explore the healthy effects of LBP. Eligible studies published up to November 15, 2020, were searched and identified from CNKI, Pubmed, Web of Science, Cocharane library detabases. A total of 315 publications were retrieved and 7 articles were included. The STATA (version 11.0) was applied to process the meta-analysis. The pooled estimate showed that daily consumption of LBP played significant effects on regulating serum triglyceride (TG), fasting blood glucose, and low-density lipoprotein (LDL) and high-density lipoprotein (HDL) concentrations (p < 0.05), while it was effect-free on the total cholesterol (TC). The present study provided a better understanding of current research status and suggested that LBP could play potential role in prevention and therapy for non-communicable chronic diseases, and more scientific evidence are required in the future.

Key teaching points

1. Goji berry and LBP, its main biologically active ingredient, have a wide range of health promotion effects.

2. The supplement of LBP may played significant effects on regulating serum TG, HDL, LDL and FBG concentrations.

3. Goji may serve as a potential drug to prevent and treat chronic non-communicable diseases in the future.

4. Healthy dietary patterns containing goji berries will be a new choice for consumers in the future.

Keywords:

• Meta-analysis
• Goji berry
• Lycium barbarum polysaccharide
• glucose and lipid metabolism
• chronic non-communicable diseases

Author contributions

Beijia Zhou contributed to the Literature Search, data analysis and final writing; Shaokang Wang and Ligang Yang contributed to the literature search and data analysis. Hui Xia and Guiju Sun was responsible for the final manuscript writing and revision. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Additional information

Funding

We sincerely thank all support from National Key Research and Development Program of China (NO. 2016YFD0400604-02), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NO. 82003457), Jiangsu Province Science Foundation for Youths (NO. BK20200366), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities and “Zhishan” Scholars Programs of Southeast University. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.