Biological effects of essential oils and extracts
M. Karami; F. Ghassemi
Abstract
This study aimed to investigate the effects of aqueous-alcoholic extract of Ducrosia anethifolia (DC.) Boiss. leaves on the fetal heart tissue changes in the diabetic rats. Forty-eight female rats weighing 200-220 g were fertilized with eight male rats weighing 230-250 g. After ensuring the pregnancy, ...
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This study aimed to investigate the effects of aqueous-alcoholic extract of Ducrosia anethifolia (DC.) Boiss. leaves on the fetal heart tissue changes in the diabetic rats. Forty-eight female rats weighing 200-220 g were fertilized with eight male rats weighing 230-250 g. After ensuring the pregnancy, the females became diabetic by intraperitoneal injection of streptozotocin (80 mg kg-1 body weight) on the first day of pregnancy, and were randomly grouped. Groups included Control (healthy rats without treatment), Sham 1 (healthy rats receiving 1 ml D. anethifolia extract), Sham 2 (diabetic rats without treatment), and three groups of treatments which respectively received 1 ml D. anethifolia extract at the doses of 250, 500, and 1000 kg kg-1 body weight of the diabetic rats from 6th to 20th day of the pregnancy by gavage. On the 20th day of pregnancy, after anesthetizing the rats and taking 2 ml of blood from their hearts, the fetuses were removed from their uterus. The fetal hearts were isolated and fixed in the 5% solution of formalin. After the tissue processing, the five-micron sections were prepared by the stereological method and stained with hematoxylin and eosin. The heart circumference and its wall thickness were measured by the image analysis software, and the number of heart cells was counted by the Grids-stero lite software. The data were analyzed by the ANOVA and the means were compared by the Tukey test (p < /em>≤0.05). The findings showed an increase in the blood glucose, density and length of cardiocytes, and heart circumference in all the diabetic groups compared to the control, which were significantly reduced in the diabetic rats treated with D. anethifolia extract compared to the diabetic group without treatment. According to the results, the aqueous-alcoholic extract of D. anethifolia leaves could slightly compensate the destructive changes caused by diabetes in the fetal cardiovascular tissue by reducing the blood glucose in the diabetic rats.
M. Roghani; T. Baluchnejadmojarad; M. Ramazani
Abstract
Diabetes mellitus is one of the most common endocrine disorders which accompanies multiple metabolic abnormalities. On the other hand, Apium graveolens L. (AG) has been known to reduce lipid peroxidation and lower some serum lipids in an animal model of hyperlipidemia. Therefore, the effect of chronic ...
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Diabetes mellitus is one of the most common endocrine disorders which accompanies multiple metabolic abnormalities. On the other hand, Apium graveolens L. (AG) has been known to reduce lipid peroxidation and lower some serum lipids in an animal model of hyperlipidemia. Therefore, the effect of chronic oral administration of this plant on serum glucose, triglyceride, total cholesterol, and HDL- and LDL-cholesterol level of diabetic rats was investigated. For this purpose, male Wistar rats (n = 40)(270-320 g; 3.5-4.5 months old) were randomly divided into 4 groups, i.e. control, AG-treated control, diabetic, and AG-treated diabetic groups. The treatment groups received oral administration of plant-mixed pelleted food (6.25%, w/w) for 6 weeks. Serum glucose, triglyceride, total cholesterol, LDL- and HDL- cholesterol levels were determined before the study, and at the 3rd and 6th weeks after the study. There was a significant reduction (p<0.01) in weight of animals in AG-treated and untreated diabetic groups after 6 weeks as compared to control one and the existing difference between these two groups were not significant. In addition, serum glucose level in diabetic group increased 6 weeks after the experiment as compared to the data a week before the study (P<0.001) and AG treatment of diabetic rats only had a slight and non-significant effect. Furthermore, triglyceride level in diabetic group increased 6 weeks after the experiment in comparison with related data one week before the study (P<0.05) and there was a significant lower level of triglyceride in AG-treated diabetic rats (p<0.01). Furthermore, a similar significant reduction was obtained for AG-treated-diabetic group compared to diabetic group regarding serum cholesterol level (p<0.05). On the other hand, HDL- and LDL- cholesterol levels were significantly higher (p<0.05) and lower (p<0.01) in AG-treated diabetic group compared to untreated diabetic group, respectively. As a result, oral chronic administration of AG has no significant hypoglycemic effect but leads to appropriate changes in blood lipid profile.