Resumen

CIANGHEROTTI, Carlos et al. Protective effect of RUELLIA tuberosa L. rooth on renal damage induced by experimental diabetes. AVFT [online]. 2013, vol.32, n.4, pp.57-66. ISSN 0798-0264.

Diabetes is one of the main problems of global public health, partly because of its association with other cardiometabolic diseases. Nephropathy is one of the leading causes of death in this disease. Various cellular mediators of diabetic nephropathy are known: Angiotensin II , advanced glycation products, mitogen-activated protein kinases, reactive oxygen and nitrogen species, among other, whose activation leads to increased synthesis of extracellular matrix proteins, the widening of the glomerula, tubular damage and fibrosis. In the field of ethnopharmacology several studies have provided new species, herbal and natural products for the treatment of diabetes and its complications. In Venezuela there are very few plants that have been studied. Ruellia tuberosa L. (yuquilla) is a species of ethnomedical use for diabetes and kidney problems. The aerial parts of this species have been studied extensively, meeting activities such as: anti-diabetic, antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and analgesic. However, the root has been little studied. In order to validate its traditional use as an antidiabetic and its protective capacity to know the complications of diabetes, in this work the effect of the aqueous root extract of R. tuberosa L. (RT) was assessed on the kidney damage in a rat model with streptozotocin-induced diabetes (ETZ). To do this, the changes of blood glucose, markers of renal damage, renal antioxidant system was evaluated. The result demonstrates that RT has antioxidant activity and was able to reduce and/or reverse the alteration of renal injury markers induced hyperglycemia. Similarly, RT blunted the reduced enzymatic activity of CAT, SOD, GPx and GR induced by glucose. These findings establish RT as an antioxidant with protective effect on the kidney damage in diabetes, via a mechanism that involves the decrease of glycemia and oxidative stress. This provides, for the first time, information about the pharmacological effects of RT, while contributing to the validation of its traditional use.

Palabras clave : Ruellia tuberosa L; Diabetes; renoprotector.