Effects of aqueous-alcoholic extract of Ducrosia anethifolia (DC.) Boiss. leaves on fetal heart tissue in diabetic rats

This study aimed to investigate the effects of aqueous-alcoholic extract of Ducrosia anethifolia (DC.) Boiss. leaves on the fetal heart tissue changes in the diabetic rats. Forty-eight female rats weighing 200-220 g were fertilized with eight male rats weighing 230-250 g. After ensuring the pregnancy, the females became diabetic by intraperitoneal injection of streptozotocin (80 mg kg-1 body weight) on the first day of pregnancy, and were randomly grouped. Groups included Control (healthy rats without treatment), Sham 1 (healthy rats receiving 1 ml D. anethifolia extract), Sham 2 (diabetic rats without treatment), and three groups of treatments which respectively received 1 ml D. anethifolia extract at the doses of 250, 500, and 1000 kg kg-1 body weight of the diabetic rats from 6th to 20th day of the pregnancy by gavage. On the 20th day of pregnancy, after anesthetizing the rats and taking 2 ml of blood from their hearts, the fetuses were removed from their uterus. The fetal hearts were isolated and fixed in the 5% solution of formalin. After the tissue processing, the five-micron sections were prepared by the stereological method and stained with hematoxylin and eosin. The heart circumference and its wall thickness were measured by the image analysis software, and the number of heart cells was counted by the Grids-stero lite software. The data were analyzed by the ANOVA and the means were compared by the Tukey test (p < /em>≤0.05). The findings showed an increase in the blood glucose, density and length of cardiocytes, and heart circumference in all the diabetic groups compared to the control, which were significantly reduced in the diabetic rats treated with D. anethifolia extract compared to the diabetic group without treatment. According to the results, the aqueous-alcoholic extract of D. anethifolia leaves could slightly compensate the destructive changes caused by diabetes in the fetal cardiovascular tissue by reducing the blood glucose in the diabetic rats.