Effects of Folic Acid and Magnesium Co-Administration on Blood Glucose Levels in Streptozotocin—Induced Type I Diabetic Wistar Rats

Abstract

This work was designed to study the effects of FA+ Mg (folic acid and magnesium) co-administration on blood glucose levels of STZ (streptozotocin) induced diabetic rats. Healthy albino rats weighing between 150 g and 200 g were used. The rats were randomly allotted into six groups, each containing five albino rats respectively. Five of the groups ( II, III, IV, V and VI) were induced with diabetes by the by i.p. (intraperitoneal) injection of freshly prepared in 0.1 mol/L citrate buffered solution (pH 4.5) of streptozotocin (Sigma Aldrich, St. Louis, MO, USA) at a dose of 60 mg/kg body weight. Control (vehicle) rats were injected with equal volume of 0.1 mol/L citrate buffer. Four days after STZ injection, diabetes induction was confirmed by measuring fasting blood glucose level in a tail vein blood samples using ACCU-CHEK compact plus glucometer (Roche, France). Rats with glucose level of 200 mg/dl or higher were considered as diabetic. After the induction of diabetes, the rats were treated using the folic acid and magnesium separately and in combination respectively according to group daily, whereas, the other group (a) was not given any treatment and this served as the normal control, providing a baseline data. Blood samples were collected from the rat tail vein weekly for a period of four weeks. Results obtained from the study showed that FA+ Mg administered conjointly lowered blood glucose levels after 4 weeks of treatment when compared to diabetic control, significantly (P < 0.05). The action of the co-administration of folic acid and magnesium on blood glucose in diabetic rats was similar to that of Insulin (6 IU/mL), a potent hypoglycaemic agent. Oral supplementation of folic acid (20 mg/kg b.w. /day) and MgCl 2 (500/kg b.w. /day) separately or in combination for 4 weeks of treatment exhibited differential protective response in lowering the blood glucose levels following treatments. It was also found that during combined exposure of folic acid and magnesium, the adverse effects of the diabetes induced by STZ were less pronounced in the group that had FA+ Mg than their individual effects. This suggests the synergistic beneficial effects of folic acid and Magnesium against STZ-induced diabetes in Wistar Rats.