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SA JOURNAL OF DIABETES & VASCULAR DISEASE
RESEARCH ARTICLE
VOLUME 13 NUMBER 2 • DECEMBER 2016
67
P glandulosa
treatment significantly improved urinary flow of the
animals, in conjunction with lowering the blood pressure. Although
this was not measured in the current study, we speculate that
vasopressin production and aldosterone levels were elevated in the
HFD rats.
P glandulosa
treatment may affect the levels of either of
these hormones, or it may provide a different, hitherto unrecognised
mechanism of lowering blood pressure in the animals.
Conclusion
The present study has confirmed our previous results that the dried
and ground pods of the
P glandulosa
tree have anti-hyperglycaemic
effects. In addition we have conclusively shown that this treatment
was cardioprotective, as determined by the infarct-sparing effects,
and anti-hypertensive without affecting the body weight or the
intra-peritoneal fat depots of the animals. The results indicated
that key proteins involved in the cardioprotective PI-3-kinase/PKB/
Akt pathway were affected in a manner that may be causal to this
protection.
With regard to the anti-hypertensive effects, the results
indicated water retention, possibly coupled with vasoconstriction
in the HFD animals, while ingestion of
P glandulosa
alleviated
both water retention and hypertension. Treatment of pre-diabetes,
type 2 diabetes or hypertension with
P glandulosa
therefore poses
potentially beneficial health effects besides its antihyperglycaemic
effects.
Acknowledgements
We declare a contractual agreement between the University of
Stellenbosch and Dormell Properties 528 (Pty) Ltd (registration
number: 2005/031723/07), the company licensing Conbrio Brands
(Pty) Ltd to distribute the dried and ground pods of
Prosopis
glandulosa
. We further declare that there was no personal financial
gain for the researchers involved in this work.
We acknowledge grant money from Dormell Properties to
partially fund the work as well as a THRIP grant from the NRF to
complement this. In addition, we acknowledge the kind gift of the
CIRKO mice from Prof D Abel, University of Utah, Salt Lake City,
USA.
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