Management of Diabetes Mellitus with Combined Therapy of Reducdyn and Metformin in Streptozotocin-induced Diabetic Rats Kelechi T. Nwauche, Comfort C. Monago*, Frank Onwuka Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Chemical Sciences, College of Natural and Applied Sciences, University of Port Harcourt, Choba, Rivers State, Nigeria *Corresponding Author E-mail: comy5000@yahoo.com
Online published on 27 March, 2014. Abstract Diabetes mellitus is a multifacial disease. It affects virtually every organ in the body including muscles and heart. Diabetes also leads to lipidemia. Hyperlipidemia is the greatest risk factor of coronary heart disease. Metformin is a known antidiabeticdrug while reducdyn is used in the management of liver diseases. The present study was designed to investigate thecombined effects of metformin and reducdyn on lipid profile in streptozotocin-induced diabetic rat. The rats were divided into five groups, with each group containing 9 rats. Rats in groups 2, 3, 4 and 5 were made diabetic with 160 mg/kg body weight while rats in group 1 served as negative control. Groups 2, 3, 4, and 5 were treated with water, metformin (1.4mg/kg body weight), metformin and reducdyn (1.4mg and 0.25mg/kg body weight) thenmetformin and reducdyn(1.4mg and 0.5mg/kg body weight) respectively. The effects were monitored at 3 weeks intervals for 9 weeks. The statistical analysis was carried out using one way ANOVA followed by post hoc LSD multiple comparison on SPSS 19. Metformin, when administered alone and its co-administration with the different doses of reducdynshowed significant decreases in the level of blood glucose concentration for 3, 6 and 9 weeks of treatment when compared with the diabetic control group. On induction of diabetes, the levels of serum total cholesterol (TC), triacylglyceride (TG) and low density lipoprotein(LDL) were increased, whilehigh density lipoprotein (HDL) level was decreased when compared with the normal control group. A remarkable decrease was observed in the levels of TC, TG and LDL and an increase in HDL level on the administration of metformin and its coadministration with reducdyn at different doses. It is important to observe that the co-administration of metformin 1.4mg/kg and reducdyn 0.25mg/kg body weight had a higher significant decrease in the levels of TC, TG and LDL and increase in HDL when compared with other treatment group for 3,6 and 9 weeks of treatment. This present study has proved that combination therapy using these two drugs can be used in the management ofdiabetes and hyperlipidemia induced during diabetes mellitus. Top Keywords Metformin, Reducdyn, Diabetes mellitus, lipidemia. Top |