Antioxidant plants and diabetes mellitus

Effects of Silymarin on Diabetes Mellitus Complications: A Review

Diabetes mellitus is a common metabolic disorder that is caused by a deficit in the production of (type 1) or response to (type 2) insulin. Diabetes mellitus is characterized by a state of chronic hyperglycemia and such symptoms as weight loss, thirst, polyuria, and blurred vision. These disturbances represent one of the major causes of morbidity and mortality nowadays, despite available treatments, such as insulin, insulin secretagogues, insulin sensitizers, and oral hypoglycemic agents. However, many efforts have been made to discover new drugs for diabetes treatment, including medicinal plant extracts. Silymarin is a powder extract of the seeds from Silybum marianum, a plant from the Asteraceae family. The major active ingredients include four isomers: silybin, isosilybin, silychristin, and silydianin. Silymarin is indicated for the treatment of hepatic disorders, such as cirrhosis, chronic hepatitis, and gallstones. Moreover, several studies of other pathologies, including diabetes, sepsis, osteoporosis, arthritis, hypercholesterolemia, cancer, viral infections, and Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases, have tested the effects of silymarin and reported promising results. This article reviews data from clinical, in vivo, and in vitro studies on the use of silymarin, with a focus on the complications of diabetes, including nephropathy, neuropathy, healing delays, oxidative stress, hepatotoxicity, and cardiomyopathy. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Effect of hydroalcoholic Allium ampeloprasum extract on oxidative stress, diabetes mellitus and dyslipidemia in alloxan-induced diabetic rats

Allium ampeloprasum (AA) is a medicinal plant which is used in Iranian traditional medicine to treat or prevent different diseases. The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of AA extract on oxidative stress and dyslipidemia in diabetic rats induced by alloxan. In this experimental study, 60 male Wistar rats weighing 200-250gr were randomly divided to five groups of 12 each including healthy control (group I), diabetic control (group II), metformin-treated diabetic positive control (group III) and two groups treated with doses 400 (group IV) and 800 (groupV) mg/kg/BW of AA extracts. Diabetes mellitus was experimentally induced by injection of two doses of alloxan-120 and 65mg/kg-within two consecutive days. Alloxan-induced diabetes caused significant increase in serum glucose, triglyceride (TG), total cholesterol (TC), low density lipoprotein (LDL), very low density lipoprotein (VLDL) and high density lipoprotein (HDL) levels in group II (p<0.05). Furthermore, serum malondialdehyde (MDA) levels increased significantly and liver catalase activity decreased significantly in the 2nd group compared to 1st control; respectively p=0.0001 and p=0.009. In the group IV has seen a significant decrease in serum TG (p=0.01), TC (p=0.0001), VLDL (p=0.01), and MDA (p=0.0001) levels and significant increase in the liver and kidney catalase activities of the rats compared to the group II; respectively p=0.0001 and p=0.0001. In Conclusion our results highlight potentially relevant health beneficial effects of AA extract which exerts hypoglycemic, hypolipidemic, and anti-oxidative stress effects in rats with alloxan-induced diabetes. Therefore, it may be considered as useful dietary supplements in diabetic patients.

Evaluation of bioactive compounds and antioxidant potential of hydroethanolic extract of Moringa oleifera Lam. from Rajasthan, India

Moringa oleifera Lam., the miracle tree, is widely used as a traditional medicine. The analyses of phytochemicals and antioxidant potential of hydroethanolic extract of various plant parts of M. oleifera revealed that leaves possessed the highest content of total phenolics (9.58 mg/g), β-carotene (14.10 mg/g) and lycopene (2.60 mg/g). Flowers and bark showed the highest content of total flavonoids (3.5 mg/g) and anthocyanin (52.80 mg/g), respectively. Leaves also showed maximum antioxidant potential using nitric oxide scavenging assay (IC50 - 120 µg/ml) and deoxyribose degradation assay (IC50-178 µg/ml). Highest DPPH radical scavenging activity was observed in flowers (IC50-405 µg/ml). The GC-MS study revealed the presence of 29, 36 and 24 compounds in bark, leaf and flower, respectively. The major constituent identified were epiglobulol (41.68% in bark), phytol (23.54% in leaf) and β-sitosterol (15.35% in flower).The phytochemicals identified possess several therapeutic activity, including antioxidant potential, which was confirmed through earlier reports. Moreover, the presence of 1,1,3-triethoxubutane in all the plant parts analyzed, projects it as an important source of waste water treatment as hydrophobic modifiers.

Lavandula Reduces Heart Injury via Attenuating Tumor Necrosis Factor-Alpha and Oxidative Stress in A Rat Model of Infarct-Like Myocardial Injury

Objective

Lavender is used in herbal medicine for different therapeutic purposes. Nonetheless, potential therapeutic effects of this plant in ischemic heart disease and its possible mechanisms remain to be investigated.

Materials and Methods

In this experimental study, lavender oil at doses of 200, 400 or 800 mg/kg was administered through gastric gavage for 14 days before infarct-like myocardial injury (MI). The carotid artery and left ventricle were cannulated to record arterial blood pressure (BP) and cardiac function. At the end of experiment, the heart was removed and histopathological alteration, oxidative stress biomarkers as well as tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α) level were evaluated.

Results

Induction of M.I caused cardiac dysfunction, increased levels of lipid peroxidation, TNF-α and troponin I in heart tissue (P<0.001). Pretreatment with lavender oil at doses of 200 and 400 mg/kg significantly reduced myocardial injury, troponin I and TNF-α. In addition, it improved cardiac function and antioxidant enzyme activity (P<0.01).

Conclusion

Our finding showed that lavender oil has cardioprotective effect through inhibiting oxidative stress and inflammatory pathway in the rat model with infarct-like MI. We suggest that lavender oil may be helpful in prevention or attenuation of heart injury in patients with high risk of myocardial infarction and/or ischemic heart disease.

Oxidative stress and age-related changes in T cells: is thalassemia a model of accelerated immune system aging?

Iron overload in β-thalassemia major occurs mainly due to blood transfusion, an essential treatment for β-thalassemia major patients, which results in oxidative stress. It has been thought that oxidative stress causes elevation of immune system senescent cells. Under this condition, cells normally enhance in aging, which is referred to as premature immunosenescence. Because there is no animal model for immunosenescence, most knowledge on the immunosenescence pattern is based on induction of immunosenescence. In this review, we describe iron overload and oxidative stress in β-thalassemia major patients and how they make these patients a suitable human model for immunosenescence. We also consider oxidative stress in some kinds of chronic virus infections, which induce changes in the immune system similar to β-thalassemia major. In conclusion, a therapeutic approach used to improve the immune system in such chronic virus diseases, may change the immunosenescence state and make life conditions better for β-thalassemia major patients.