Abstract
Aloe vera has commonly used for treatment and prevention varieties of diseases through over the world. Diabetes mellitus (DM) is an inability to regulate blood glucose levels. Alternative and complementary medicines have been used widely in these years for chronic diseases either for curing or limit its progression. This study aims to clarify the curative role of Aloe vera (Liliaceae) leaves gel (ALG) on experimentally induced diabetes in rats. Four groups of male albino rats (120 +/- 10 g) (8 each): control, DM rats, ALG supplemented group and DM rats treated with ALG. Diabetes was induced by a single streptozotocin (STZ) intraperitoneally (i.p.) injection (65 mg/kg b.wt) and the treatment with ALG was done by a daily oral dose (500 mg/kg b.wt.), for 4 weeks starting from ALG supplementation. Diabetic rats showed significantly hyperlipidemic, elevated lipid peroxide and glucose levels, and significantly decrease liver glycogen content compared with control group. Ingestion ALG to DM rats had a potent hypoglycemic and antioxidant effects, and significantly improve lipids profile parameters compared with DM group. It is concluded that ALG could be valuable in diabetes treatment and the antioxidant action observed in the current study may be one of the underlying mechanism for Aloe's hypoglycemic actions. Therefore, the present study recommended the use of ALG as a supplement in some beverage for diabetic and hypercholesterolemic patients.