Buckwheat (Fagopyrum esculentum Moench) was purchased from ChiFeng, Inner Mongolia province. The kits for insulin, C-peptide, free fatty acid (FFA) and very-low density lipoprotein cholesterol (vLDL-c) were purchased from Shanghai Hengyuan Biological Technology (Shanghai, China). The kits for total cholesterol (TC), triacylglycerol (TG), low density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-c), high density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-c), glucose, total protein, hepatic glycogen were obtained from the Nanjing Jiancheng Bioengineering Institute (Nanjing, China). RNAiso Plus reagent, the PrimeScript II 1st Strand cDNA Synthesis Kit and the SYBR? Premix Ex Taq? II (Tli RNaseH Plus) Kit were purchased from TaKara (Japan). All experiments were performed according to the manufacturer’s protocols. Other chemicals used in this study were of analytical grade.