The Comparative Effect of Pomegranate Peel Extract and Dapagliflozin on Body Weight of Male Albino Wistar Rats with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus

Sodium Glucose Co-Transporter 2 (SGLT2) inhibitor is the second line of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) treatment. From in silico and in vitro studies, ellagic acid in pomegranate fruits has a similar effect to the SGLT2 inhibitor. This study aimed to investigate the effect of pomegranate peel extract (PPE) on body weight (BW) of male rats with T2DM. Male Albino Wistar rats, which aged 8 weeks and weighed 150-200 g were induced with single dose of 230 mg/kgBW nicotinamide and 65 mg/kgBW streptozotocin intraperitoneally. The control group consisted of 14 rats with T2DM and randomly divided into the negative control (NC) and the positive control (PC) treated with 0.18 mg/kgBW/day dapaglifozin. Twenty one rats with T2DM were divided into 3 treatment groups (T1-3) and given with 50, 100, and 200 mg/kgBW/day PPE respectively for 14 days. Collected data were analyzed using ANOVA and LSD post hoc tests with p value <0.05. The mean fasting blood glucose levels of all rat groups were 262.04±4.24 mg/dL and the mean BW was 182.86±4.75 g after induction. After 7 days treatment, the mean BW in T1 (188.14±6.40), T2 (186.85±4.94) and T3 (189.85±5.95) groups were significantly higher than that of in the NC group (179.14±3.02) but only the mean BW in the T3 group significantly different from the PC group (184.00±6.40; p = 0.034). The same results were also observed in 14 days treatment. Administration of PPE is able to resume BW in rats model with T2DM, better than dapaglifozin.