Abstract

Herbal products are an affective move towards the treatment of diabetes and impeding its complications. However, there have been no reports to date on Commiphora wightii (EACWR) for the treatment of diabetes and its associated metabolism. Oral administration of EACWR (400 mg/kg body weight) to streptozotocin (STZ) induced diabetic rats effectively elevated body weight, plasma insulin level, hepatic and skeletal muscle glycogen and hepatic glucokinase (GK) activity. It also increases serum antioxidant levels (superoxide dismutase [SOD] and catalase [CAT]) and hepatic lipids like high density lipoprotein-cholesterol (HDL-C). Simultaneously, EACWR administration also lowers the plasma triglycerides (TG), total cholesterol (TC), low density lipoprotein-cholesterol (LDL-C), very low density lipoprotein-cholesterol (VLDL-C), serum lipid peroxidation (LPO) and hepatic glucose-6-phosphatase (G-6-Pase) activity. It was also found that EACWR supplementation into diabetic rats also depleted inflammatory cytokines level (tumor necrosis factor-α [TNF-α], interlukin-6 [IL-6] and interlukin-1b [IL-1β]). This reduced cytokines level indicating the protective role of EACWR on pancreatic b-cell from apoptosis and promotes the exiting b-cell to release more insulin. Our significant outcomes suggest that EACWR has a potential impact in abrogating hyperlipidemia, oxidative stress and repaired the carbohydrate metabolism that could be considered as a protective herbal drug for diabetes treatment.

Key words: Commiphora wightii, diabetes, oxidative stress, carbohydrate, lipid metabolism.