Abstract
Almond oil has been used as a medicine substitution for its numerous health benefits. This study aimed to evaluate the effect of almond oil on streptozotocin- (STZ-) induced diabetic rats for 4 weeks. The results showed that the administration of almond oil could significantly increase body weight, attenuate abnormally elevated blood glucose, promote insulin secretion, and improve glucose tolerance. Almond oil treatment also suppressed oxidative stress, reduced inflammation reaction, improved liver and kidney function, upregulated the expressions of Nrf2, HO-1, and NQO1, while downregulating the expression of Keap1. Furthermore, almond oil reversed the gut microbiota change by STZ and regulated the gut microbiota associated with glucose metabolism. At the phylum level, the relative abundance of Firmicutes was decreased, while Bacteroidetes was increased by almond oil treatment. More importantly, the ratio of Firmicutes/Bacteroidetes was significantly increased. At the genus level, administration of almond oil increased the abundances of Lactobacillus, Bacteroides, and Lachnospiraceae_NK4A136_group, while decreased the abundances of Ruminococcaceae_UCG-014, Clostridium_sensu_stricto_1, and Fusicatenibacter. These results provided evidence for the regulating effect of almond oil on diabetic rats via the Nrf2/HO-1 pathway and gut microbiota.
Highlights
Diabetes is a chronic metabolic disease characterized by hyperglycemia that has been recognized as an increasing global health problem [1]
Due to the excellent antioxidant activity of almond oil, we speculated the beneficial effect of almond oil on diabetes. erefore, our present study aimed to investigate the effects of almond oil on diabetic rats induced by STZ via the regulation of oxidative stress and inflammatory response, nuclear factor erythroid 2-related factor 2 (Nrf2)/heme oxygenase 1 (HO-1) signaling pathway, and gut microbiota changes. e study would provide a beneficial suggestion for choosing a diet supplement
Compared with the model control group (MC) group, the body weight of the medium dose of almond oil group (MAO) group was significantly increased at week 2 (P < 0.05); the three doses of almond oil and the sunflower seed oil group (SSO) group significantly increased body weight (P < 0.01) at weeks 3 and 4. e results showed that different doses of almond oil could reduce the weight loss of diabetic rats
Summary
Diabetes is a chronic metabolic disease characterized by hyperglycemia that has been recognized as an increasing global health problem [1]. Chronic hyperglycemia causes oxidative stress and inflammation in the occurrence of diabetes. It is frequently associated with dysfunction and severe clinical complications, such as diabetic retinopathy [3], nephropathy [4], neuropathy [5], and peripheral artery disease, owing to the glucotoxicity effects [6, 7], which accelerate the mortality of diabetes. The binding of Kelch-like ECH-associated protein 1 (Keap1) to Nrf could suppress the Keap1/Nrf pathway, which leads to the ubiquitination and degradation of cytoplasmic Nrf2 [8]
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