Compartments of Quercetin & Allium cepa (Onion) on Blood Glucose in Diabetic Rats

Background: the major concern in diabetes is increased oxidative stress. maintaining a balance between reactive oxygen species (ros) and antioxidants is a major mechanism in preventing damage from oxidative stress. quercetin (qr) is a well-known flavonoid and a strong antioxidant derived from the onion, allium cepa, and it has been shown to reduce oxidative stress in the long-term treatment of streptozotocin (stz)-induced diabetes in animals. objective: we aimed to study on beneficial effects of qr & allium cepa on regulation of blood glucose in diabetic model.methods: seventy male 8-week-old wistar albino rats weighing 250 ± 10 g were obtained, the rats were divided into seven groups comprising ten animals in each group. diabetes induced with single intraperitoneal injection of stz. diabetic rats treated with quercetin (15mg/kg/day, started 48 hours after stz injection) and allium cepa juice (2cc/rat/day, started 48 hours after stz injection). after 28 days treatment, analysis on blood glucose and insulin was done. results: the mean tac showed a significant increase (p < 0.05) in the qr compared to the control, stz and stz + qr groups. both qr and onion juice had significant effect in lowering blood glucose (355.3 ± 104 mg/dl and 353.4 ± 103 mg/dl respectively) (p<0.05) in stz induced diabetic animals. both qr and onion juice had lowering effect in serum insulin in healthy animals and significant increasing effect on serum insulin level in diabetic animals. conclusions: both qr and onion juice had good effect in modifying diabetes related biochemical parameters and they are recommended to be studied more in order to being used in the therapy.