Evaluation of Antidiabetic and Antioxidant Potential of Zingiber officinale, Allium sativum, and Momordica charantia in Wistar Rats

Abstract

Affecting more than half a billion people globally, T2DM usually instigates quietly through mild insulin resistance and dyslipidemia, gradually leading the body towards more advanced complications, such as retinopathy, peripheral angiopathy, nephropathy, neuropathy, NAFLD, and diabetic foot disease, etc. For the management of these diabetic complications, traditional herbal medicines with affirmative consequences have been in use for centuries. Thus, in consideration of the antidiabetic potential of natural products, the current study was designed to investigate the antidiabetic and antioxidant properties of Z. officinale, A. sativum, M. charantia and a combination of the aforementioned medicinal herbs by in silico and in vivo studies. Network pharmacology approach, employing the use of PPI network formation was adapted to investigate the naturally occurring phytochemicals of the medicinal plants pertaining drug like properties, which revealed that quercetin (-9.7), rutin (-11.6), and ursodiol (-10.1) exhibit high binding affinities with AKT1 protein. For in vivo evaluation, seven groups of wistar rats were formed, and administered with HFD and STZ for diabetes induction. Diabetic rats were then orally fed with ground forms of medicinal plants for 42 days at a ratio of 1:100. Results obtained through experimental analysis revealed that M. charantia treatment stabilized the body weights of the male and female wistar rats and reduced their BGL up to almost 50 percent. Z. officinale and A. sativum treatment decreased the blood glucose levels by as much as 30% and 33% respectively. The lipid profile of the A. sativum-treated rats (P<0.0001) showed about 50% improvement. However, the combination therapy reduced the free radical damage to kidney and liver, as evident from histopathological and biochemical analyses in addition to improvement of hyperglycemia (P<0.0001), and lipid profile (P<0.0001). From the results, it can be concluded that the combinatorial therapy could be effectively used for the management of micro and macrovascular complications of diabetes.