Attenuation of Hyperglycemia in Diabetic Rats Assisted by Immobilized Probiotic in Sodium Alginate

Diabetes mellitus type 2 (DM2) is the most common chronic disease worldwide, characterized mainly by increased glucose concentration in the blood and affecting several organs' functionality. The daily consumption of probiotic bacteria can help control diabetes and reduce the damage caused. Cell immobilization techniques are a powerful tool that provides physical cell protection to such probiotic bacteria against gastrointestinal conditions. We suggest that cell immobilization could be a significant vector for delivering a high quantity of viable probiotics to the gut, helping attenuate hyperglycemia in diabetic rats. Seventy male Wistar rats were used in this work. Nicotinamide was administrated via intraperitoneal injection 15 minutes before inducing type 2 diabetes (DM2), followed by a second intraperitoneal injection of streptozotocin to induce DM2. Rats were divided into seven groups. For 45 days, a specific treatment was applied to each group. The group of rats, supplied with immobilized Lactobacillus casei, showed a serum glucose concentration of 137 mg/dL, which was close to the one observed in the groups of healthy rats (117 mg/dL) and rats treated with metformin (155 mg/dL). The diabetic rats without treatment presented a higher serum glucose concentration (461 mg/dL). In the rats treated with immobilized L. casei, there was no biochemical parameter alteration, and the cell morphology of the analyzed tissues was similar to those of the healthy group. The consumption of immobilized L. casei could allow a high quantity of viable probiotics to be delivered to the gut, reducing serum glucose concentration by up to 70% compared to diabetic rats and reducing organ damage caused by diabetes.