Fig. 1

ASH supplementation maintained body weight and suppressed anxiety-like behavior in HFD-induced obese rats. a Line graph representing the percentage change in body weight among different groups of animals over the period of 12 weeks (n = 10 ± 1 each group). b Histogram represents average time spent by the animals in open and closed arms of elevated plus maze. Among the four groups, HFD animals spent maximum time in the closed arm. The exploratory activity of animals of each group is shown by the number of entries (c) and number of crossings (d) in open and closed arms. HFDE animals showed more exploratory activity than the other groups. e Histogram represents the number of head dips by the animals of each group. Values are expressed as mean ± SEM. * p ≤ 0.05 LFD versus HFD, LFDE, and HFDE rats; ^# p ≤ 0.05 HFD versus HFDE rats; ^$ p ≤ 0.05 HFD versus LFDE rats; ^@ p ≤ 0.05 LFDE versus HFDE rats; ^¤ statistically significant difference within group, Holm–Sidak method after one-way ANOVA in a, b and f and two-way ANOVA in c, d and e