Protective Effect of Silymarin on Kidneys of Rats with Type 2 Diabetic Nephropathy / 中国药师

ABSTRACT

Objective:To evaluate the efficacy of silymarin on type 2 diabetic nephropathy in rats. Methods:Totally 60 male al-bino Wistar rats at the age of 8 weeks were involved in the study, and non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus was induced in 45 over-night-fasted rats by intramuscular injection of streptozotocin and nicotinamide. Among the 45 rats, three ones failed to make the model, and forty-two rats with diabetic nephropathy were randomly divided into diabetes control group (DC group), diabetes treated by low dosage silymarin group ( DT-L group) and diabetes treated by high dosage silymarin group ( DT-H group) with 14 cases in each. The dosage of silymarin in DT-L group and DT-H group was 60 mg·kg-1 ·d-1 and 120mg·kg-1 ·d-1 , respectively, and the treatment course was 60 days. The other 15 rats were divided into the normal control group ( NC group) with equal volume buffer solution. The glycosylated hemoglobin, urine volume, serum creatine, serum uric acid, and urine albumin levels were analyzed by the semi-automat-ic biochemial analyzer. Results:At the end of the study, the DC group had significantly higher levels of blood glucose, glycosylated hemoglobin, urine volume, serum uric acid and urine albumin than the NC group (P<0. 05), while the two silymarin-treated groups showed significantly lower levels of the indices than the DC group (P<0. 05). Conclusion:The results show that silymarin has pro-tective effect on kidneys of rats with type 2 diabetes mellitus, which lay foundation for the future clinical application.