Protective Role of Diets Containing Vernonia Amygdalina Leaves on Streptozotocin- Induced Oxidative Stress and Liver Damage

Oxidative stress and liver damage occur in diabetes mellitus. The objective of this study was to determine some biomakers of oxidative stress and liver damage in Streptozotocin -induced diabetic wistar rats consuming diets containing Vernonia amygdalina leaves in order to evaluate the involvement of the diet in the management of oxidative stress and liver damage common among diabetics. The design consisted of fifty rats randomly divided into five groups (1-5) with10 rats per group. The Research took place at the Department of Biochemistry, University of Calabar, Nigeria between March, 2011 and May, 2012.Group 1 (normal control) was fed with control diet; Group 2 (diabetic control) was fed with control diet, Group 3 and 4 (diabetic treated) were fed with Vernonia amygdalina at 5% and 7.5%, respectively. Group 5 (diabetic treated) was fed with control diet and treated with insulin. Diabetes mellitus was induced in the diabetic groups by intraperitoneal injection of 55mg/kg body weight of Streptozotocin, (STZ) reconstituted in 0.1%M sodium citrate buffer. Feed and water were given ad- libitum for 28 days. Results showed that diabetic rats in groups 3 and 4 consuming Vernonia amygdalina had significant (p<0.5) decrease in MDA concentration and significant increase it the activity of GPx, SOD and Catalase relative to the diabetic control. Diabetic rats consuming Vernonia amygdalina also had significant reduction (p<0.5) in the level of ALT, AST, and ALP relative to the diabetic control. The results for diabetic rats in groups 3 and 4 consuming Vernonia amygdalina diets were superior to those on Insulin (group 5) for the measured parameters and were not significantly different (p<0.5) when compared to the normal control rats ( group 2). We concluded that consumption of diets containing Vernonia amygdalina leaves has protective effect against oxidative stress and liver damage associated with diabetes mellitus and might constitute a diet- based treatment or adjunct for management of oxidative stress and liver diabetes mellitus.