Comparative effects of glibenclamide, metformin and insulin on fetal pancreatic histology and maternal blood glucose in pregnant streptozotocin-induced diabetic rats

Abstract

Background: Oral hypoglycemic agents use during pregnancy was assumed to cause fetal macrosomia and skeletal deformities, and maternal complications due to significant transfer across placenta or ineffective control of blood glucose.Objective: This study investigated effects of insulin, metformin and glibenclamide on maternal blood glucose; and fetal crown-rump length, gross malformation and pancreatic histology in pregnant streptozotocin-induced diabetic rats.Methods: Twenty-five pregnant rats of groups 1 to 5 as normal and diabetic controls; and diabetic treated with insulin, metformin and glibenclamide were used. Experimental GDM was induced using 45 and 35mg/Kgbw of intraperitoneal streptozotocin.Results: Metformin, Insulin and Glibenclamide significantly reduced maternal glucose by 140.6mg/dL, 103.2mg/dL and 98.54mg/dl; respectively and showed islets with regular interlobular ducts, islets with some irregular interlobular ducts, and islets with many irregular interlobular ducts in histological fetal pancreatic photomicrographs respectively. This depicts metformin having highest ameliorative effect. There were no significant differences in maternal and fetal body weights, maternal blood glucose between diabetic groups, and fetal gross examination.Conclusion: At the doses used in this research, metformin and glibenclamide showed no adverse effects on maternal and fetal features in the treatment of GDM. Thus, they can be used as safe and inexpensive alternatives to insulin.Keywords: Gestational diabetes mellitus, oral hypoglycemic agents, blood glucose, fetal malformation and fetal pancreatic histology.

Effect of metformin on Bax expression in pancreas and testis of normoglycemic albino rat: An immunohistochemical study

“…In contrast to this finding, it was reported that the fetal pancreatic tissue for metformin treated mother rats showed preserved structure of pancreatic islets with no signs of degeneration or inflammation. 11 However, this finding might be explained by different doses of metformin, they used the drug in a dose of (36.43 mg/kg) which is much less than the dose used in this study.…”

“…8 Metformin was found to induce seminiferous tubules degeneration and atrophy when used with glibenclmide, oral anti-diabetic medication, in non diabetic rats for 21 days. 10,11 The exact mechanism of metformin toxicity in pancreas is not clear. It might be a result of acinar cell degeneration in patients with renal faliure leading to leakage of digestive enzymes from pancreatic ducts to the intercellular space.…”

Evaluation of the Factors that affect voluntary blood donation in students at Rushoroza Seed School, Kanungu District.

“…The findings also revealed that most 40(60%) of the participants were male and few 27(40%) were female in this study similarly [12] revealed that proportions of males were 54% who had donated blood was significantly higher than females which had 46%. For instance, males are usually heavier than females and are therefore more likely to weigh above 50 kg which is the cut-off weight for donation [29][30][31]. Nearly the highest percentages with 34(52%) participants were bakiga tribe and lowest 13(19%) bafumbira this is because bakiga tribe is native people where the study was carried out.…”

Insulin therapy in diabetic kidney disease

“…Although the use of insulin can cause maternal hypoglycemia [118][119][120] and increase maternal weight [121][122][123], it has been shown that insulin when used at therapeutic concentrations does not directly affect the fetus through the placenta [124][125][126], and maternal insulin treatment can reduce poor perinatal prognosis [113,115]. Oral hypoglycemic drugs, such as metformin and glibenclamide, will have some benefits on weight control and insulin sensitivity [127,128], but they can cause giant fetuses and skeletal malformations by entering the fetus through the placenta as well as maternal complications due to the massive transfer between the placenta or ineffective blood glucose control [129][130][131][132].…”