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Tinospora cordifolia attenuates oxidative stress and distorted carbohydrate metabolism in experimentally induced type 2 diabetes in rats

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Abstract

Diabetes is a chronic metabolic disorder affecting a vast number of people worldwide. Oxidative stress is the causative agent amplifying diabetic complications in various organs by generating noxious amount of free radicals. A huge interest always exists in exploring nutraceuticals from plant materials to replace synthetic drugs in order to overcome their adverse effects and also for economic reasons. The anti-diabetic efficiency of a medicinal plant, Tinospora cordifolia (TC) was studied in experimentally induced type 2 diabetes in Sprague–Dawley rats. Diabetes was induced by a combination of high fat diet (HFD) for a period of 10 weeks followed by intraperitoneal injection of streptozotocin (STZ, 35 mg/kg of body weight). Oral treatment of TC (100 and 200 mg/kg body weight) for 14 days regulated blood glucose, provoked insulin secretion and also suppressed oxidative stress marker, thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS), formation and restored cellular defence anti-oxidant markers including superoxide dismutase (SOD), glutathione peroxidase (GPx) and glutathione (GSH), in liver. Treatment with TC (100 and 200 mg/kg) also inhibited glucose 6-phosphatase and fructose 1,6-diphosphatase (p < 0.001); and restored glycogen content in liver (p < 0.005), which was also studied by histopathological staining with periodic acid–Schiff stain. In conclusion, the traditional plant Tinospora cordifolia mediates its anti-diabetic potential through mitigating oxidative stress, promoting insulin secretion and also by inhibiting gluconeogenesis and glycogenolysis, thereby regulating blood glucose.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank the Department of Science and Technology (Govt. of India) for providing fellowship, staff of the Centre for Toxicology and Developmental Research (CEFT) for help in conducting animal studies and the Central Research Facility (CRF) of Sri Ramachandra University for running the RT-PCR.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Herbal and Indian Medicine Research Laboratory, Department of Biochemistry, Sri Ramachandra University, Chennai, 600116, India

    Marimuthu Kannan Sangeetha, Hanumantha Rao Balaji Raghavendran & Veeraraghavan Gayathri

  2. Department of Biotechnology, School of Life Sciences, Pondicherry University, Puducherry, 605014, India

    Hannah R. Vasanthi

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  1. Marimuthu Kannan Sangeetha
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  2. Hanumantha Rao Balaji Raghavendran
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  3. Veeraraghavan Gayathri
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Correspondence to Hannah R. Vasanthi.

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Sangeetha, M.K., Balaji Raghavendran, H.R., Gayathri, V. et al. Tinospora cordifolia attenuates oxidative stress and distorted carbohydrate metabolism in experimentally induced type 2 diabetes in rats. J Nat Med 65, 544–550 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11418-011-0538-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11418-011-0538-6

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