The therapeutics effects and toxic risk of Heracleum persicum Desf. extract on streptozotocin-induced diabetic rats.

There is an increasing interest against to fight of diabetes by using hypoglycemic plants in the world. The public thinks that Heracleum persicum (HP) has antidiabetic effect local consumer in Turkey. As far as our literature survey, no studies have been reported so far on antidiabetic effects and toxic risk potential of the HP lyophilized extract supplementation used in this study. The aim of this study, for the first time, was to investigate the therapeutic effects of diabetic complications, antioxidant properties and toxic risk potential of HP against experimentaly streptozotocin (STZ) induced diabetes in rats, which were evaluated by measuring the level of serum biomarker releated diabetes complications changes such glucose, insülin, c-peptide, lipid profile (LP), hepatic and renal damage biomarkers (HRDB), glucosylated hemoglobin (HbA1c), antioxidant defense system constituents (ADSCs), malondialdehyde (MDA) content measured in erythrocyte, brain, kidney and liver tissues, and α-glucosidase activitiy of small intestine. The plant aqueous extract was allowed to freeze-dried under a vacuum at -54 °C to obtain a fine lyophilized extract. The study was performed on STZ-induced diabetic rats (45 mg/kg, body weight (bw), intraperitonally) designed as normal control (NC), diabetic control (DC), diabetes + acarbose (DAC) (20 mg/kg, bw), diabetes + HP (100 mg/kg, bw) (DH1), diabetes + HP (200 mg/kg, bw) (DH2) and diabetes + HP (400 mg/kg, bw) (DH3)] groups. The experimental process lasted 21 days. According to results; the levels of blood glucose (BG), glucosylated hemoglobin (HbA1c) and malondialdehyde (MDA) of DC group increased significantly (p<0.05) compared to NC group, whereas these parameters of the groups treated with oral administrations of HP plant lyophilized extract were observed significant (p<0.05) declines compared to DC. The biochemical analyses showed a considerable decrease in insulin and c-peptide levels and the fluctuated ADSCs in the DC group as compared to control group, whereas the extract supplementations diet restored the diabetic complications parameters towards to the NC. On the other hands, liver damage serum enzymes as serum aspartate aminotransferase (AST) and alanine aminotransferase (ALT) levels were incressed significantly (p<0.05) in the plant extract supplementations groups as compared to NC and DC groups. It was concluded that while the extracts of HP have had therapeutic effects on some complications caused by diabetes, but might be caused hepatocyte damage changes as the transport functions and membrane permeability of these cells, thus causing enzymes to leak.