Anti-Oxidant Effects of Silybum marianum Extracts on Diabetic Wistar Rats
Antioxidants are specialized macro-molecules that neutralize harmful substances; free radicals. These radicals supposedly harm tissues, destroy food items, and damage materials. In living organisms, antioxidants can take the form of enzymes, and may be regularly added to oils, metals, foodstuffs, as well as numerous other materials to mitigate the damaging effect of free radical. Current study was designed to investigate the biochemical changes in antioxidant enzyme activities, following administration of Silybum marianum (an ancient medicinal plant of the Carduus marianum family) on Alloxan-Induced, diabetic rats. One hundred and twenty-five (125) rats were procured, made to acclimatize for two weeks, and then randomly grouped into five (5) groups of (n=25). Group 1: Non-Diabetic (Control) rats, Group 2 diabetic untreated rats, while groups 3, 4 and 5 comprised of vitamin-C treated rats (diabetic), Silymarin (extract), and Vitamin C + Silymarin (extract) combined treatment respectively. After four weeks of treatment with test extract, animals were then sacrificed, and blood samples collected and assayed for biochemical [anti-oxidant] enzyme activity. Upon statistical analysis, one way Analysis of variance (ANOVA) showed Catalase (CAT), superoxide dismutase (SOD) and malonaldehyde (MDA) activities to have significantly decreased for extract + vitamin C treated group (Group V) when compared with control (Group I). It was also noted that the use of the combined antioxidants vitamin C and silymarin resulted in a significant reduction in ROS production with decreased SOD and CAT enzyme activities. It is therefore likely that, improvements in antioxidant enzyme activities are a function of extract and/or Vitamin C administration to animals. Thus, Silymarin has antioxidant and regenerative potentials to damaged tissues.