Research Article Protective Effects of Tamarillo (Cyphomandra betacea) Extract against High Fat Diet Induced Obesity in Sprague-Dawley Rats Noor Atiqah Aizan Abdul Kadir, 1 Asmah Rahmat, 1 and Hawa Z. E. Jaafar 2 1 Department of Nutrition and Dietetics, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia 2 Department of Crop Science, Faculty of Agriculture, University Putra Malaysia, 43400 Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia Correspondence should be addressed to Asmah Rahmat; asmah@upm.edu.my Received 19 April 2015; Accepted 27 May 2015 Academic Editor: Andras Hajnal Copyright © 2015 Noor Atiqah Aizan Abdul Kadir et al. Tis is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Tis study aims to investigate the protective efect of Cyphomandra betacea in adult male Sprague-Dawley rats fed with high fat diet. Rats were fed on either normal chow or high fat diet for 10 weeks for obesity induction phase and subsequently received C. betacea extract at low dose (150 mg kg −1 ), medium dose (200 mg kg −1 ), or high dose (300 mg kg −1 ) or placebo via oral gavages for another 7 weeks for treatment phase. Treatment of obese rats with C. betacea extracts led to a signifcant decrease in total cholesterol and signifcant increase in HDL-C ( < 0.05). Also there was a trend of positive reduction in blood glucose, triglyceride, and LDL-C with positive reduction of body weight detected in medium and high dosage of C. betacea extract. Interestingly, C. betacea treated rats showed positive improvement of superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity and glutathione peroxidase (GPx) activity along with a signifcant increase of total antioxidant status (TAS) ( < 0.05). Further, rats treated with C. betacea show signifcantly lower in TNF- and IL-6 activities ( < 0.05). Tis study demonstrates the potential use of Cyphomandra betacea extract for weight maintenance and complimentary therapy to suppress some obesity complication signs. 1. Introduction Obesity is currently the most common metabolic disease in the world; it is signifcantly associated with potentially life- threatening comorbidities. Either obesity itself or comorbidi- ties of obesity are responsible for increased cardiovascular risk. Obesity is associated with most of the components of metabolic syndrome, the leading cause of type 2 diabetes. Te comorbidities of obesity and type 2 diabetes associated with insulin-resistance syndrome include obstructive sleep apnea, hypertension, polycystic ovary syndrome, nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, and certain forms of cancer [1]. When obesity persists for a long time, therefore, the antioxidant sources can be depleted, decreasing the activity of enzymes such as superoxide dismutase (SOD) and catalase (CAT) [2]. Te activity of SOD and glutathione peroxidase (GPx) in individuals with obesity is signifcantly lower com- pared with that in healthy persons, having implications for the development of obesity-related health problems [3, 4]. Obesity is considered as a low-grade chronic infamma- tion. Te levels of proinfammatory adipokines and protein such as tumour necrosis factor- (TNF-), interleukin (IL- 6), and inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) in adipose tissues and C-reactive protein (CRP) in plasma are increased in obese people [5]. Te uncontrolled infammatory response leads to a persistent proinfammatory state resulting in rising blood pressure, thrombosis, dyslipidaemia, and metabolic disease in obesity [6–8]. High fat diet induced obese rat model has been con- sidered as a popular preference for its ability to mimic the usual way of obesity in human. High fat diet is one of the major factors causing obesity and long term intake of high fat diet showed signifcant increase in abdominal fat weight in mammals [9]. Woods et al. [10] reported that in high fat diet induced obese rat model, the high fat rats weighed more than control rats. In addition, they also developed subsequently more adipose tissue than control rats and acquired the Hindawi Publishing Corporation Journal of Obesity Volume 2015, Article ID 846041, 8 pages http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2015/846041