Therapeutic Efficacy of Thymus vulgaris in Restoring Pancreatic β-Cell Function in Type 1 Diabetes Rats

Abstract

Diabetes mellitus poses a significant global health challenge, highlighting the need to investigate natural therapeutic alternatives that have few side effects. This research investigated the in vivo antidiabetic properties of the methanolic extract of Thymus vulgaris (thyme) in rats with diabetes induced by streptozotocin (STZ). The findings indicated that thyme extract significantly decreased fasting blood glucose levels in the treated rats, in contrast to the diabetic control group. Serum insulin levels increased notably in the group treated with thyme when compared to the diabetic control group, although they remained below normal levels. The hepatoprotective effects were confirmed by a reduction in ALT and AST levels in the thyme-treated group compared to the diabetic controls. The indicators of renal functioning were significantly improved because the level of urea and creatinine in the thymed-treated group was much lower than in the diabetic controls. Pancreatic tissue histopathological examination demonstrated that there is a restoration of islet structure, an increase in β-cell population, and a decrease in degenerative change in the thyme-treated rats in comparison with diabetic controls. Furthermore, there was also a significant recovery of body weight in treated animals, and they were almost at the same level as the normal control group. In the quantitative examination of real-time PCR, it was established that both, insulin gene (Ins1) and the Pancreatic and Duodenal Homeobox (PDX-1) gene expression in thyme-treated rats was significantly greater than that in diabetic rats, indicating improved β-cell functions and insulin secretion. The results indicate that the methanolic extract of Thymus vulgaris has considerable antidiabetic, hepatoprotective, and renoprotective properties, which support its use as an adjunctive therapeutic agent in the management of diabetes. Keywords

Diabetes mellitus Thymus vulgaris STZ-induced diabetes pancreatic β-cells gene expression Ins-1 Pdx-1 gene