Cardiovascular Journal of Africa: Vol 24 No 2 (March 2013)

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CARDIOVASCULAR JOURNAL OF AFRICA • Vol 24, No 2, March 2013 16 AFRICA
The treatment with P glandulosa was able to alleviate
this, thereby adding to the myocardial protection observed.
To highlight this argument, in the present study both the ACE
inhibitor and P glandulosa treatment significantly improved
urinary flow of the animals, in conjunction with lowering the
blood pressure. Although this was not measured in the current
study, we speculate that vasopressin production and aldosterone
levels were elevated in the HFD rats. P glandulosa treatment may
affect the levels of either of these hormones, or it may provide
a different, hitherto unrecognised mechanism of lowering blood
pressure in the animals.
Conclusion
The present study has confirmed our previous results that
the dried and ground pods of the P glandulosa tree have
anti-hyperglycaemic effects. In addition we have conclusively
shown that this treatment was cardioprotective, as determined
by the infarct-sparing effects, and anti-hypertensive without
affecting the body weight or the intra-peritoneal fat depots of the
animals. The results indicated that key proteins involved in the
cardioprotective PI-3-kinase/PKB/Akt pathway were affected in
a manner that may be causal to this protection.
With regard to the anti-hypertensive effects, the results
indicated water retention, possibly coupled with vasoconstriction
in the HFD animals, while ingestion of P glandulosa alleviated
both water retention and hypertension. Treatment of pre-diabetes,
type 2 diabetes or hypertension with P glandulosa therefore
poses potentially beneficial health effects besides its anti-
hyperglycaemic effects.
We declare a contractual agreement between the University of Stellenbosch
and Dormell Properties 528 (Pty) Ltd (registration number: 2005/031723/07),
the company licensing Conbrio Brands (Pty) Ltd to distribute the dried and
ground pods of Prosopis glandulosa. We further declare that there was no
personal financial gain for the researchers involved in this work.
We acknowledge grant money from Dormell Properties to partially fund
the work as well as a THRIP grant from the NRF to complement this. In
addition, we acknowledge the kind gift of the CIRKO mice from Prof DAbel,
University of Utah, Salt Lake City, USA.
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