Diabetes mellitus is a global health crisis persistently affecting people worldwide1. The death and morbidity rate has increased intensively high in only short period of time2. At metabolic point, people with hyperglycemia were exposed to long-term damage, dysfunction and even failure of many tissues and organs such as eyes, kidneys, nerves, heart and blood vessels3.
One of the serious issues faced by diabetic patients was failure of wound healing. The increase in blood sugar levels leads towards; micro-vascular complications, neuropathy, micro-angiopathy and prevents cell reproduction, collagen generation and decrease in wound tensile strength which later lead to delay in wound healing4.
Diabetes related complications such as wound healing can be herbally treated and with natural compounds having therapeutic effects. The herbal treatments possess not only anti-diabeteic potential but also have limited side effects as compared to conventional anti-diabetic drugs5. Moreover herbal plants were shown to improve fibrogenesis, wound repair by increasing wound tensile strength and tissue remodeling6.
Previously Olive is reported to have diabetic wound healing properties7. This may be related to its antioxidant, antimicrobial, blood pressure-lowering, hypocholesterolemic, anti-diabetic and anti-inflammatory effects of its phenolic components, particularly oleuropein which constitutes the main phenolic component in olive leaf8.
So the scientists conducted a new study keeping in view the above olive facts and its main component oleuropein. They studied the aqueous extract of olive leaf for antioxidant activity, wound healing property and then, its effect on the activity and expression of tTG (tissue transglutaminase) was tested in vivo by applying on the wounds of rats with streptozotocin (STZ)-induced diabetes9.
Researchers took 50 male rats and treated them with streptozotocin (STZ) to induce diabetes in them. To evaluate wound healing activity of olive leaf extracts, animals with diabetic wounds were treated topically twice daily with ointments of olive extracts. Wound closer, tissue transglutaminase (tTG) and total antioxidant capacity (TAC) were estimated as parameters of wound healing capacity of olive extracts in diabetic treated and non-treated rats. In vitro phytochemical screening analyses were performed to estimate active constituents.
It was found that wound healing was slow in diabetic group as compared to the one treated with olive leaf extract. Wound contraction and scar formation were positively correlated with the increase in the levels of tTG as markers of collagen deposition and TAC activity. Due to antioxidant and anti-diabetic activity of olive leaf extract constituents, particularly oleuropein, collagen deposition process was estimated in diabetic wound healing.
Authors said about the study:
“Although oleuropein was reported as skin wound healing agent in previous rat models, our study confirmed that besides antioxidant capacity of olive leaf extract (OLE) enriched with oleuropein, our data showed that OLE has fibro genetic expression activity of both HPX and tTG which could be a suitable therapeutic agent for diabetic wound healing. In addition, it concluded that treating of diabetic and non-diabetic wounds by OLE has been determined to be more effective in comparison with classic wound healing treatments.”
References:
- Colagiuri, R., 2010. Diabetes: A pandemic, a development issue or both? Expert Rev. Cardiovasc. Ther., 8: 305-309.
- Wild, S., G. Roglic, A. Green, R. Sicree and H. King, 2004. Global prevalence of diabetes: Estimates for the year 2000 and projections for 2030. Diabetes Care, 27: 1047-1053.
- American Diabetes Association, 2010. Diagnosis and classification of diabetes mellitus. Diabetes Care, 33: S62-S69.
- Blakytny, R. and E. Jude, 2006. The molecular biology of chronic wounds and delayed healing in diabetes. Diabetic Med., 23: 594-608.
- Kanner, J., S. Gorelik, S. Roman and R. Kohen, 2012. Protection by polyphenols of postprandial human plasma and low-density lipoprotein modification: The stomach as a bioreactor. J. Agric. Food Chem., 60: 8790-8796.
- Bailey, C.J. and C. Day, 1989. Traditional plant medicines as treatments for diabetes. Diabetes Care, 12: 553-564.
- Wiwanitkit, V., 2011. Thai ethnopharmacological herbs for diabetes treatment: Data collection and informatics tracing for therapeutic property. Diabetes Metab. Syndrome: Clin. Res. Rev., 5: 103-104.
- El, S.N. and S. Karakaya, 2009. Olive tree (Olea europaea) leaves: Potential beneficial effects on human health. Nutr. Rev., 67: 632-638.
- Al-Basher, G. and F. Al-Otibi, 2018. Biological activity of olive leaf extract and regulation of tissue transglutaminase expression in diabetic wound healing. J. Pharmacol., 14: 963-972.
Written by: Rabeeia