Berberine reduced blood pressure and improved vasodilation in diabetic rats

Abstract

Hyperglycemia and hypertension are considered to be the two leading risk factors for vascular disease in diabetic patients. However, few pharmacologic agents could provide a combinational therapy for controlling hyperglycemia and hypertension at the same time in diabetes. The objectives of this study are to investigate whether berberine treatment could directly reduce blood pressure and identify the molecular mechanism underlying the vascular protection of berberine in diabetic rats. Berberine was intragastrically administered with different dosages of 50, 100 and 200 mg/kg/day to diabetic rats for 8 weeks since the injection of streptozotocin. The endothelium-dependent/-independent relaxation in middle cerebral arteries was investigated. The activity of large-conductance Ca-activated K channel (BK) was investigated by recording whole-cell currents, analyzing single-channel activities and assessing the expressions of α- and β1-subunit at protein or mRNA levels. Results of the study suggest that chronic administration of 100 mg/kg/day berberine not only lowered blood glucose but also reduced blood pressure and improved vasodilation in diabetic rats. Furthermore, berberine markedly increased the function and expression of BK β1-subunit in cerebral vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs) isolated from diabetic rats or when exposed to hyperglycemia condition. The present study provided initial evidences that berberine reduced blood pressure and improved vasodilation in diabetic rats by activation of BK channel in VSMCs, which suggested that berberine might provide a combinational therapy for controlling hyperglycemia and blood pressure in diabetes. Furthermore, our work indicated that activation of BK channel might be the underlying mechanism responsible for the vascular protection of berberine in diabetes.

Effects of Berberis vulgaris Extract on Lipid Profile, Kidney and Liver Function in Experimental Dyslipidemia

“…The concentration of berberine in the extract was similar to the concentration of berberine used as pure standard as reported in other studies (e. g. 75 mg,100mg, 120mg, 200mg) [19][20][21][22].…”

Berberine for prevention of dementia associated with diabetes and its comorbidities: A systematic review

“…Furthermore, pro-and antiinflammatory mediators released from perivascular adipose tissue are involved in the development of atherosclerosis [181], suggesting that adipocytes may play a key role in diabetes-associated cardiovascular dysfunctions. The results demonstrated that berberine could protect cardiovascular functions by reducing the risk of hypertension [123,126] and coagulation [134], attenuating cardiac hypertrophy [115,129,132] and cardiac arrhythmias [110,113], and inhibiting potential cardiovascular damages associated with dyslipidemia [74,114,116,[119][120][121]124,125,130,135,136]. In addition, berberine reduced obesity and cardiovascular risk at least in part via modulating adipocyte populations and inflammatory state in the adipose tissues [112,117,118,128,131].…”

“…Berberine has also been shown to reduce total cholesterol and LDL-C in clinical trials [23,60]. In studies in vitro, berberine alleviated palmitate-induced endothelial dysfunction via upregulation of endothelial nitric oxide synthase (eNOS) and downregulation of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate oxidase 4 (NOX4) [114], an enzyme involved in age-associated cardiovascular dysfunction via oxidative stress and inflammation [150]; it also inhibited HG-potentiated platelet aggregation [134], suppressed HGinduced endothelial dysfunction and restored NO generation possibly via suppressing ectopic miR-133a expression and restoring peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor (PPAR) γ and AMPK signaling [44,121,123,125,126]. In another study, it reduced oxidized LDL-induced inflammatory responses in macrophages via AMPK activation and nuclear factor (NF)-B inhibition [135].…”

Antiviral activity of berberine

“…It is present in several medicinal plants, such as Berberis vulgaris, Coptis chinensis, Hydrastis canadensis, Coptidis rhizoma, Xanthoriza simplicissima, Phellodendron amurense, and Chelidonium majus. Berberine exhibits unusual biochemical and pharmacological activities, including antidiabetic [1], hypolipidemic [2], antihypertensive [3], anti-inflammatory [4], antidiarrheal [5], hepatoprotective [6], antidepressant [7], anticancer [8], antibacterial [9], and antiviral [10] properties. BBR is capable of penetrating all cell lines, but the cumulative concentration is the highest in Hep G-2 cells [11].…”