Effects of Caffeine and Lycopene in Experimentally Induced Diabetes Mellitus

Objectives Diabetes mellitus (DM) is a global epidemic with increasing prevalence. The disease is chronic in nature, and patients must use antidiabetic drugs or insulin during their lifespan. Because of the difficulty of using injectable insulin preparations, patients and practitioners prefer to use oral antidiabetic drugs for prophylaxis and treatment. There are, however, numerous adverse effects of antidiabetic drugs and rapidly increasing attention is being paid to new nutraceutical drugs with fewer adverse effects. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of caffeine and lycopene on streptozotocin (STZ)-induced DM in rats. Methods Caffeine and lycopene were administered to the study groups by oral gavages for 1 month whereafter experimental diabetes was induced in 90 rats in 6 groups. Results There were no pathological effects of lycopene and caffeine on the pancreas. Marked vacuolization and degeneration were observed in STZ-treated groups. Caffeine and lycopene decreased the pathological findings and lowered the blood and urine glucose levels in the rats with STZ-induced DM, whereas these compounds increased serum insulin levels. Conclusions This study showed that caffeine and lycopene provided protective effects against experimentally induced DM. The protective effects of lycopene were observed to be much greater than those of caffeine.