Ameliorating Effects Of Curcumin By Gavage On Myocardial Enzymes And Oxidation Index In Experimental Diabetic Rats

Background Curcumin is a natural polyphenol extracted from turmeric rhizome, widely used as food addictives in southeast Asia. More and more researches revealed that curcumin has a wide range of biological activities, such as anti-oxdiance, anti-inflammation, anti-tumor and so on, with no obvious side effects of high dose as well. Because of the little solubility in water, oral administration of curcumin is relatively safe, convenient and easy to accept. Curcumin can be used for the prevention or therapy in the diabetic complications including heart injury. Most of the treating times about curcumin by gavage on the diabetic complications are more than 6 weeks, and most of the curcumin were used as prevention in previous experiments.Objective: To explore the therapeutic effects of curcumin by gavage in 2 or 4 weeks on the myocardial enzymes and oxidative indexes in the ventricular muscle tissue of diabetic rats, and provide the evidence of treating time of curcumin to heart injury of diabeties.Methods: Adult male SD rats were injected intraperitoneally with streptozocin(STZ) to make the diabetic models. Diabetic rats were treated with curcumin by gavage(200mg / kg) 1 time a day for a period of four weeks or two weeks respectively, which was started from the eighth week or tenth week after the STZ injection. To the end of the twelfth weeks of the experiment,the rats were killed by cervical dislocation. The ventricular myocardial muscles were clipped and homogenated. The content of Aspartate transaminase(AST), lactate dehydrogenase(LDH), lactate dehydrogenase(LDH), creatinekinase(CK) and creatine kinase isoenzyme MB(CK-MB)were detected by automatic biochemical analyzer. The contents of superoxide dismutase(SOD) and malondialdehyde(MDA) were detected by using the Microplate Reader. Each set of data variance was analysised by SPSS17.0, and the Q-test was used to compare the differences between each group, with P<0.05 as a statistically significant difference.Results: In STZ diabetic group, the contents of AST, LDH, CK and CK-MB were obviously increased compared with that in control group(P<0.01). The content of MDA, a product of oxidative stress, was obviously increased in diabetic group(P<0.01). The content of SOD, an enzyme of anti-oxidative stress, was significantly decreased in diabetic group(P<0.01). Compared with diabetic group, all of the levels of myocardial enzymes was decreased in the group of curcumin treated for 2 or 4 weeks, especially that in 4 weeks group(P<0.01). Meanwhile,the content of MDA in myocardial muscles was obviously reduced by curcumin treated for 2 or 4 weeks(P<0.05 or P<0.01), and the content of SOD was obviously increased in 2 or 4 weeks group(P<0.05 or P<0.01). There was significant difference about the changes of SOD between that in 2 weeks group and that in 4 weeks group(P<0.05). No obvious difference was observed about MDA changes between that in 2 weeks group and that in 4 weeks group(P>0.05).Conclusion: Curcumin treated with gavage for 4 weeks can reduce the myocardial injury and enhance the antioxidative activity in diabetic rats, and the therapeutic effects of curcumin for 4 weeks are better than that for 2 weeks.