eng Science and Education Publishing Journal of Food and Nutrition Research 2333-1240 2017-07-21 5 8 539 544 10.12691/jfnr-5-8-2 JFNR2017582 article Eun-Young Kim 1 Ah-Young Song 1 Yiseul Kim 1 Byung-Koo Yoon 2 YoungJoo Lee 3 Mee-Ra Rhyu mrrhyu@kfri.re.kr 3 Division of Functional Food Research, Korea Food Research Institute, Gyeonggi-do, Republic of Korea Samsung Medical Center, Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine, Seoul, Republic of Korea Department of Bioscience and Biotechnology, College of Life Science, Sejong University, Seoul, Republic of Korea We investigated the effects of long-term administration of black cohosh extract (BcEx) on serum lipid profiles and vasomotor responses in ovariectomized (OVX) rats and compared them with those of rats administered 17β-estradiol (E2) or raloxifene, a selective estrogen receptor modulator. Vehicle (OVX- or sham-control), BcEx (0.5 or 3.0 mg/kg/day), E2 (0.5 mg/kg/day), or raloxifene (2.5 mg/kg/day) were injected subcutaneously for 5 weeks, and serum lipid profiles and vasomotor responses were measured at the end of the treatment. BcEx lowered total cholesterol (TC) and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) levels, but did not affect high-density lipoprotein cholesterol or triglyceride (TG) levels. Raloxifene showed a similar effect to that of BcEx, while E2 attenuated the increase in TC and LDL-C levels and significantly increased TG levels. The vascular relaxation induced by carbachol increased significantly in norepinephrine-precontracted aortic rings isolated from BcEx-, E2-, or raloxifene-treated rats. No change in uterine weight was observed in the BcEx-treated group. The raloxifene-treated group showed a similar trend as that of the BcEx-treated group, but E2 significantly increased uterine weight. These results suggest that long-term administration of BcEx behaves similar to the selective estrogen receptor modulator raloxifene. http://pubs.sciepub.com/jfnr/5/8/2/jfnr-5-8-2.pdf black cohosh ovariectomy lipid profiles vasomotor responses selective estrogen receptor modulators