Nontargeted metabolomic profiling analysis of patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus undergoing corn silk treatment

To explore the corn silk's effect and possible mechanism on patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) by untargeted metabolomics. Newly diagnosed patients with T2DM admitted to the endocrinology department of the author's hospital from March 2020 to September 2021 were chosen and then allocated to either the intervention or the control group (NC) randomly. Patients in the intervention group were administered corn silk in the same way as the patients in the NC were given a placebo. A hypoglycemic effect was observed, and an untargeted metabolomics study was done on patients of both groups. Compared with the NC, the glycosylated hemoglobin and fasting blood glucose of patients in the intervention group significantly decreased after 3 months of treatment (P < .05), identified using tandem mass spectrometry, and analyzed by orthogonal partial least squares-discriminant analysis. A total of 73 differential metabolites were screened under the conditions of variable important in projection value >1.0 and P < .05. Differential metabolites are mainly enriched in signaling pathways such as oxidative phosphorylation, purine metabolism, and endocrine resistance. Through untargeted metabolomic analysis, it is found that corn silk water extract may reduce blood glucose in patients with T2DM through multiple pathways, including oxidative phosphorylation and purine metabolism.