THE EFFECT OF CARVACROL UPON EXPERIMENTALLY INDUCED DIABETIC NEUROPATHY AND NEUROPATHIC PAIN IN RATS

Diabetic neuropathies are the most frequent complication of diabetes. While numerous meta-bolic pathways are disrupted in diabetic neuropathy, oxidative stress has been indicated as a significant reason for this condition. In this study, the effect of carvacrol, which has antioxidant effects, on experi-mental diabetic neuropathy and neuropathic pain was investigated. Alloxan was used to induce diabetes in the experiment. Diabetes was created by administering 120 mg/kg of alloxan intraperitoneally (i.p) once a day for 3 days. Rats with a blood glucose concentration above 250 mg/kg in the blood taken from the tail veins at the end of three days were considered diabetic. Rats were categorized under healthy con-trol (HG), alloxan-induced hyperglycemia (AG), and alloxan-induced hyperglycemia + carvacrol-treated (ACG) groups. Carvacrol was i.p injected at 50 mg/kg dose to the ACG (n = 6) group of rats with hyper-glycemia. The same volume of distilled water as the solvent was applied in the same way to AG (n = 6) and HG (n = 6) rat groups. This procedure was repeated once a day for three months. Carvacrol showed an anti-hyperglycemic effect in diabetic rats, a protective effect against lowering pain threshold, and an-algesic activity in rat paws. Carvacrol prevented the oxidant/antioxidant balance from changing in favor of oxidants. The results supported that carvacrol is an agent against alloxan-induced peripheral diabetic neuropathic pain