*3.2. Animals and Diets*

The animal study was approved by the Institution Animal Care and Use Committee of National Taiwan University (No.NTU-98-EL-106). Three-week old male C57BL/6J mice were purchased from the National Laboratory Animal Center (Taipei, Taiwan) and housed individually in stainless steel wire cages in an animal room with a 12-hr light, 12-hr dark cycle (light period: 0800–2000) and constant temperature (22 ± 2 °C). Mice were fed a non-purified diet (LabDiet® 5001, PMI® Nutrition International Inc., Brentwood, MO, USA) for 1 week and switched to the high sucrose (HS, Table 1) diet for another week before the experiment. After the 2- week acclimation, mice were randomly assigned into four groups (4 mice/group) and respectively fed: HS (50% sucrose, 7% soybean oil), HF (high-fat diet, 23% butter plus 7% soybean oil), HS + F (HS diet supplemented with 0.2% FX) or HF + F (HF diet supplemented with 0.2% FX) test diets for 5 weeks. The composition 

of the 4 test diets was modified from AIN-93G [37] and our previous studies [60,61] (Table 1). The amounts of casein, cellulose, vitamin and mineral mixtures in the highfat diets were adjusted to make the nutrient/energy ratios equivalent to those of the HS diet. Mice had free access to the diet and water. Body weight and food intake were recorded weekly. 
