Physicochemical Properties And Regulatory Effects On Db/db Diabetic Mice Of Beta-glucans Extracted From Oat, Wheat And Barley

Diabetes is a current and frequently-occurring disease which severely threatens to humanhealth. The drug and medicine were used to treat diabetes has severely side-effects, such ashypoglycemia, lactic acidosis, bloating and other adverse reactions, therefore natural bioactiveingredients derived from nature; especially bioactive polysaccharides from plants havebecame research hotspots to therapy diabetes. In current study, the molecular weights andrheological properties of β-glucans purified from oat, wheat and barley were investigated, andthe therapy effects of β-glucans on db/db diabetic mice were compared.40maleC57BL/KsJ-db/db diabetic mice were devided into5groups: model control group (MC),metformin treatment group (MT), oat β-glucan treatment group (OT), wheat β-glucantreatment group (WT), and barley β-glucan treatment group (BT); the metformin was used asthe positive control, each group have8mice. The growth index, glucose and lipid metabolism,oxidative stress and pathological slices stained with HE of liver were to evaluate the effect ofalleviating the symptoms, protecting liver and relieving diabetic complications. As the sametime, we will find out the relationship of the molecular weight of β-glucan with the effect.The main results were as follows:(1)The average values of molecular weight (MW) of β-glucan from oat, wheat and barleywere172kDa,635kDa and743kDa; the viscosities (intrinsic viscosity and apperentviscosity) of β-glucans were positively correlated with their corresponded molecular weights,and wheat and barley β-glucan showed significant shear thinning ability compared to oatβ-glucan; The solution of oat and wheat β-glucan showed stronger viscous behavior thanelastic behavior, however, as the oscillation frequency increased, the solution of barleyβ-glucan showed strong elastic behavior. We can conclude that, as the molecular weight ofβ-glucan increased, the viscous behavior decreased and the elastic behavior increased.(2) Animals experiments showed: β-glucans could paly a certain weigth control, weightloss function on db/db diabetic mice (P>0.05); Three kinds of β-glucans could reduce suremTG, TC and LDL-C, but no significant effect on blood glucose and HDL-C was observed(P>0.05). Moreover, β-glucan could significantly reduce liver TC and TG (P<0.05), and the effects of β-glucans reducing TG and TC in liver were positively correlated with theirmolecular weights.(3) β-glucan could significantly increase liver SOD acticity (P<0.05) and decrease liverMDA (P>0.05), and the effects of β-glucans reducing TG and TC in liver were positivelycorrelated with their molecular weights. β-glucan added to the diet could play a role inantioxidant and the antioxidant effect was positively correlated with the molecular weight ofβ-glucan. Moreover, β-glucan had a certain inhibition effect on steatosis and inflammation ofdb/db diabetic mice, and the effect became better with the molecular weight increased.