Lipid Profile of Streptozotocin-Induced Diabetic Wistar Albino Rats Treated with Aqueous Extracts of Nauclea latifolia

Abstract

In recent times there has been a steady increase in researches aimed at searching for plant agents that can be used in the management of diabetes mellitus and its complications with minimal side effects compared with the anti-diabetic drugs in the pharmaceutical market. This work is on the effect of aqueous extracts of
Nauclea latifolia plant on serum lipid profile in streptozotocin- induced diabetic rats. Thirty mature male Wistar albino rats were divided into six treatment groups of five rats each. Group A was normal control and group B was streptozotocin-induced diabetic control. Groups C, D and E were streptozotocin- induced diabetic rats treated daily with 500mg / kg. body weight of aqueous extracts of stem-bark, leaves and root-bark of Nauclea latifolia respectively. Group F was streptozotocin- induced diabetic rats treated daily with 5mg / kg. body weight of glibenclamide and the treatment was for 28 days. The serum total cholesterol, high density lipoprotein cholesterol and triacylglycerol of the rats were determined using assay kits from Agape Diagnostic, Switzerland while very low density lipoprotein cholesterol was determined by calculation according to the method of Burstein and Samaile (1960). The low density lipoprotein cholesterol was estimated using the method of Friedwald, Levy and Fredrickson (1972) which entails differential subtraction of the sum of the cholesterol fractions from the total cholesterol. The parameters were analyzed using One- way Analysis of Variance with the level of significance determined by least significant difference. The streptozotocin-induced diabetic control rats had their serum levels of total cholesterol, low density lipoprotein cholesterol, very low density lipoprotein cholesterol and triacylglycerol significantly elevated compared with the normal control. Nauclea latifolia aqueous extracts brought about significant reduction of total cholesterol, low density lipoprotein cholesterol and triacylglycerol levels in the diabetic treated rats. The outcome of this work indicates that Nauclea latifolia aqueous extracts have ameliorating effect on diabetic complications due to high serum lipid profile levels.