RESEARCH ARTICLE
Anti-diabetic Effect of Acridocarpus Orientalis
Mohamed Lotfy1, Taoufik S. Ksiksi1, Abdul Rasheed Palakkot1, Crystal M. D’Souza2, Sahar Mohsin2, Ernest A. Adeghate2, *
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2020Volume: 14
First Page: 132
Last Page: 144
Publisher ID: TOMCJ-14-132
DOI: 10.2174/1874104502014010132
Article History:
Received Date: 12/6/2020Revision Received Date: 18/9/2020
Acceptance Date: 22/9/2020
Electronic publication date: 27/11/2020
Collection year: 2020
open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
Background:
Acridocarpus orientalis (AO) is a medicinal herb indigenous to tropical and subtropical Africa, Arabian Peninsula, and New Caledonia with reported anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties.
Objective:
To determine whether AO has any beneficial effects on diabetes-induced metabolic parameters in rats.
Materials and Methods:
Diabetes mellitus was induced in male Wistar rats by streptozotocin. Diabetic rats were treated with three doses of AO extract (50, 100, and 200 mg/kg BW) for 30 days. Kidney, liver, and pancreatic tissue samples were processed for histopathology to determine the effect of AO on the cells of these organs. The effect of AO on pancreatic islet cells and serum insulin levels was also examined using immunohistochemistry and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay techniques, respectively.
Results:
AO (100 mg/kg BW) caused a marked reduction in blood glucose levels in diabetic rats compared to diabetic control on day 10 of the study. Moreover, AO (200 mg/kg BW) increased the number of insulin-positive cells with a concomitant reduction in the number of glucagon-immunoreactive cells in pancreatic islets. AO (100 mg/kg) also increased the serum level of superoxide dismutase significantly. Although the administration of AO was able to significantly decrease the diabetes-associated increases in serum creatinine and bilirubin levels, it had no effect on blood urea nitrogen, serum aspartate, or alanine aminotransferase levels. Histopathological examination showed that AO has no toxic effect on the structure of the pancreas, liver, and kidney.
Conclusion:
Our findings showed that AO could alleviate some complications of diabetes mellitus.
