diosgenin attenuates cardiac oxidative stress in streptozotocin- induced diabetic rat

Background and objective: chronic diabetes mellitus (dm) leads to cardiovascular dysfunction. diosgenin is a natural steroidal saponin with cardiovascular protective potential. in this research study, the beneficial effect of diosgenin was evaluated on some markers of oxidative stress in cardia tissue of streptozotocin (stz)-diabetic rats. materials and methods: male wistar rats (n = 28) were divided into equal-sized control, diosgenin-treated control, diabetic, and diosgenin-treated diabetic groups. diabetes was induced by a single intraperitoneal injection of streptozotocin (60 mg/kg). diosgenin was administered p.o. at a dose of 40 mg/kg for 7 weeks. some markers of oxidative stress including malondialdehyde (mda), superoxide dismutase (sod), catalase, and reduced glutathione (gsh) were measured in cardiac tissue homogenate.results: it was found out that diabetic group had an elevated mda content (p < 0.01), reduced activity of sod (p < 0.05) and catalase (p < 0.05) and a lower content of gsh (p < 0.01) versus control group and chronic diosgenin treatment significantly reversed only mda (p < 0.05) and gsh (p < 0.05) with no significant effect on sod activity and catalase activity. conclusion: diosgenin could attenuate cardiac lipid peroxidation and improves non-enzymatic antioxidant defensive system in diabetic condition and it may be considered as a potential therapeutic agent to mitigate cardiac dysfunction in dm.