The aim of this study was to assess the anti-obesity effect of Lactobacillus acidophilus-fermented mixture of skim milk, red ginseng extract, and immature fruit of Rubus coreanus Miquel (called black raspberry) extract in a mouse model of diet-induced obesity. Male C57BL/6J mice were fed a normal diet (ND), high-fat diet (HFD), high-fat diet supplemented with fermented skim milk (HFD-FSM), or high-fat diet supplemented with the fermented mixture (HFDFMIX). FSM and FMIX were orally administered (2 g/kg of body weight) on a daily basis. Following a 6-week regimen, the following physical and biochemical measures were assessed: feed intake, body weight, periepididymal fat and perirenal fat mass, size of the epididymal adipocytes, and plasma levels of glucose, insulin, adiponectin, and leptin. No significant differences were observed in all parameters tested in the HFD-fed and HFD-FSM-fed groups, except the plasma leptin level, which was higher in the HFD-FSM-fed group than in the HFD-fed group. In the HFD-FMIX-fed group, feed intake was similar to, but the adiponectin level was higher than that in the HFD-fed group. The HFD-FMIX-fed group showed significantly lower increase in body weight, size of epididymal adipocytes, and plasma levels of glucose and leptin than the HFD-fed group. These results demonstrate that the obesity-related measures can be decreased in obese mice by administration of L. acidophilus-fermented mixture of skim milk, red ginseng, and black raspberry fruit extract. These results also suggest that the fermented mixture can possibly be utilized as a functional food material with an anti-obesity effect.

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