The Impressive Evaluation of Selenium Yeast Role Against Diabetes Mellitus and its Comorbidities by Streptozotocin-Induced Diabetes in Rats

Current anti-diabetic drugs exhibit many side-effects and alternative strategies with minimal side effects and low cost are greatly needed. This study aimed to evaluate selenium yeast (SY) role against diabetes mellitus (DM) in Streptozotocin (STZ)-induced DM. STZ was intraperitoneal injected daily to Sprague-dawley rats to induce DM. SY (0.2 mg/kg) anti-diabetic effect on DM complications was evaluated after 8 weeks of treatment. Biochemical analyses were performed to evaluate SY effectiveness on glucose level, insulin sensitivity, lipid disturbances, oxidative mediators and inflammatory markers. STZ induced DM with toxic effect accompanied with toxic hepatic tissues, lipid disturbances, remarkable oxidative damage and hyper-inflammation. Although there was no significant difference, SY anti-diabetic effect illustrated by decreases in fasting blood glucose, insulin, HbA1c and HOMA-IR levels. SY significantly attenuated (P<0.05) lipid disturbances and their associated elevated atherogenic biomarkers. Moreover, SY treatments exhibited an anti-inflammatory effect as it ameliorated the increase in inflammatory parameters (CRP, TNF-alpha, IL-6). Also, it restored total antioxidant capacity and peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor (PPAR gamma) levels that decreased by STZ-DM induction. This study highlighted SY promising therapeutic role in DM. SY ameliorated lipid accumulation, alleviated pro-inflammatory cytokines expression and restoring the antioxidant capacity. Further studies needed to evaluate SY combination with other standard anti-diabetic drugs to improve its efficacy.