The effect of methanolic extract of Avocado seed on liver damage in type II diabetic mice

Objectives: Type II diabetes is a metabolic disorder that can gradually cause damage to the structure and function of many organs such as the liver. The medicinal relevance of the various parts of avocado is enormous. The effect of avocado seed extracts on blood pressure and plasma and tissue lipids were investigated but there is no scientific information about the hepatoprotective effect of Avocado seed extract in type II diabetes. Materials Methods: In this study, 40 adult male mice were divided into 8 groups including: control, diabetic, 3 sham and 3 treatment groups. Diabetes type 2 was induced by high fat diet and low dose of streptozotocin. One week after streptozotocin injection, sham and treatment groups received 50, 100 and 150 mg/kg methanolic extract of avocado seed for 40 consecutive days via oral gavage. At the end of experiment, blood was obtained and levels of functional liver markers including alanine aminotransferase (ALT), aspartate aminotransferase (AST) and alkaline phosphatase (ALP) were assessed in the serum. Data was analyzed by one-way ANOVA and Tukey post hoc using SPSS (ver 19) software. A P-value of less than 0.05 was considered significant.Results Conclusion: Results indicated that methanolic extract of avocado seed reduced serum level of functional hepatic enzymes in normal mice but there was significant reduction in dose of 100 and 150 mg/kg for ALT and AST and 150 mg/kg for ALP compared to no treated normal mice (p 0.05). Data showed that diabetes severely increased these enzymes significantly. Results revealed that methanolic extract of avocado seed could significantly decrease level of ALT, AST and ALP in the serum in a dose-dependent manner. Based on these results it can be concluded that administration of methanolic extract of Avocado seed has a suitable hepatoporotective effect against functional liver damage in type 2 diabetes.