Aberrant hepatic glucose levels and cellular damage reversed by Cucurbita maxima blossoms on experimental models

Objectives

Investigate the ameliorating effects of Pumpkin flowers (Cucurbita maxima) 10% and 20% fortified cake on cellular damage caused by alloxan-induced diabetic rats.

Methods

Forty adult male albino rats of approximately weigh about 180 ± 5 g were obtained and divided into five distinct groups to determine the effect of C. maxima flowers enriched (CMFP) cake two different concentrations (10 % and 20 %) had any beneficial impacts on rats with a single dose of 40 mg/kg alloxan to induce diabetes.

Results

The observations on the blood insulin, blood sugar, lipid profile, serum liver biomarkers, lipid peroxidation enzyme markers, and pro-oxidative mediators showed that oral administration of 10% and 20% CMFP cake lowers the blood sugar, Total Cholesterol (TC), Low-Density Lipoprotein (LDL), Very Low-Density lipoprotein (VLDL) and Triglyceride (TG). In rat treated with alloxan, the levels of alanine transaminase (ALT), alkaline phosphatase ALP), aspartate transaminase (AST) and the levels of malondialdehyde (MDA), thiobarbituric acid reactive compounds (TBARS), conjugated dienes (CD) and lipid hydroperoxides (LOOH) were significantly reduced. Moreover, blood serum insulin, high density lipoprotein (HDL), Superoxide dismutase (SOD), Catalase (CAT) and reduced glutathione (GSH) increased simultaneously; These results verified that the 20% CMFP cake was the best treatment specially in decreasing hepatic lipid peroxidation with levels between 54%, 49.5% and 75.2 % for LOOH, CD and TBARS consequently.

Conclusion

Since, pumpkin blossoms contains a wide range of phytonutrients, pumpkin blossom has the potential to be a functional food source to incorporate into diabetics’ diets to manage the disease.