EFFECT OF Uncaria tomentosa AND Harpagophytum procumbens IN THE INTERRELATION BETWEEN INFLAMMATION, INSULIN RESISTANCE AND TYPE 2 DIABETES

• Grant number: 13/14495-1
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• Start date until: November 01, 2013
• End date until: April 30, 2014
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Physiology
• Principal Investigator: Carla Roberta de Oliveira Carvalho
• Grantee: Felipe Natali Almeida
• Host Institution: Instituto de Ciências Biomédicas (ICB). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The discovery of new drugs usually is an expensive and long process, because it involves the development of new chemical bioactive compounds with desirable biological functions and minimal side effects. Considering insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes (DM2) as polymorphic metabolic and multifactorial disturbances, but unknown inflammatory origins, one could ask the effectiveness that herbal anti-inflammatories used in skeletal muscle diseases (such as Uncaria tomentosa and Harpagophytum procumbens), should present if used as a "new" therapeutic strategy. In this context, we propose to demonstrate in this study a "proof of context", that obese mice that present insulin resistance induced by 12 weeks of high fat diet (DIO), would present an expressive improvement in glucose metabolism after U. tomentosa and H. procumbens administration, probably induced by an improvement of the interrelation between obesity/inflammation/DM2.