The possible influences of dietary oil supplementation in ameliorating metabolic disturbances and oxidative stress in Alloxan injected rats

Diabetes mellitus (DM) is a multifactor disease that is associated with a number of different metabolic abnormalities. Clinical research has confirmed the efficacy of several plant extracts in the modulation of oxidative stress associated with DM. The present work was conducted to examine the protective or treating effects of two different dietary oils rich in medium chain fatty acids (MCFA) as coconut oil (CO) or omega-3-polyunsaturated fatty acids (ω-3-PUFAs)as flaxseed oil (FO) on the severity of DM induced experimentally by alloxan injection. Wistar strain albino rats (17 Og) were fed commercial rat chow diet supplemented with either CO or FO for four weeks. A single dose of alloxan (150 mg/kg) resulted in hyperglycemia, decreases in serum insulin, thyroxine (T4), and high density lipoprotein-cholesterol levels, elevated triglycerides, total cholesterol and low density lipoprotein-cholesterol concentrations. Concurrent with those changes, an increased liver malonaldehyde (MDA) level was observed. This oxidative stress was related to decreases in superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity and glutathione (GSH) content in the liver of alloxan diabetic rats. Oils supplementation after diabetes induction ameliorated hyperglycemia, increased insulin and thyroxine hormone levels, improved lipid profiles, blunted the increase in MDA, modulated the levels of hepatic SOD activity and GSH content of alloxan treated rats. It could be suggested that each of CO or FO could be used as antidiabetic complement in case of DM. This may be related to their anti oxidative properties