Modulating Effect of Camel’s Milk on Alloxan-Induced Experimental Diabetes in Laboratory Animal Model

Abstract

The present study was conducted to evaluate the hypoglycemic effect of camel's milk in alloxan-induced diabetic animal model compared to control and cow's milk receiving groups. This study was carried out on thirty five female white albino rats and divided into 2 main groups: optimizing and experimental group. Optimizing group (n = 20) was used to determine the optimal dose of alloxan to induce diabetes in a pattern of dose response relationship. This group was divided into four subgroups, sG1 to sG4, (n = 5 each). sG1, sG2, sG3, and sG4 were injected intraperitoneally with alloxan monohydrate at a dose 100, 140, 180 and 200 mg/kg B.W., respectively. Experimental group (n =15) was divided into three subgroups (n = 5 each) as following: diabetic rats receiving no treatment and acts as a positive control (sG1), diabetic rats receiving camel's milk (sG2) and diabetic rats receiving cow's milk (sG3). Their blood glucose levels (BGLs) were estimated at weekly interval for 5 consecutive weeks. A baseline BGL was determined before conducting the experiment and it was 79.85 ± 4.2 mg/dl. The results showed that 140 mg/kg B.W. of alloxan was the optimal dose to induce stable diabetes in the optimizing group. In the experimental group, the initial mean BGLs for sG1, sG2, and sG3 were 399.5 ± 18.3, 429.4 ± 66.4 and 404.6 ± 53.6 mg/dl, respectively and after 5 th week there were 488.2 ± 20.8, 308.28 ± 52.2, 519.8 ± 131.5 mg/dl respectively. Most diabetic animals that received cow's milk exhibits severe signs of diabetes at 4 th week of experiment and died by 5 th week while animals that received camel's milk showed marked improvement and one of them exhibited normal BGL by the end of experiment. Our findings suggested that administration of camel's milk was effective in improvement of the alloxan-induced diabetic rats and recommended as nutraceuticals supplement in diabetic patient.