The Effect of Chronic Oral Administration of Capsicum Frutescens in an Experimental Model of Diabetes Mellitus in Rat

Hyperalgesia is one of the major symptoms of diabetic neuropathy and could affect the quality of patient's lives. On the other hand, pepper has been reported to have both an anti-diabetic and an analgesic property. This study was therefore carried out to evaluate its possible role in controlling pain in diabetes in an experimental model of streptozotocin-induced diabetic in rat. For this purpose, the rats were randomly divided into six groups control, pepper-treated control, salicylate-treated control, diabetic, salicylate-treated diabetic (positive control), and pepper-treated diabetic groups. Pepper was administered via mixing in the normal food, and at the end of the experimental period of one month, the nociceptive responses was evaluated in both acute and chronic phases by standard formalin test. The results showed that there was a significant increase in the pain scores in both acute and chronic phases in control diabetic rats,. Administration of pepper for significantly reduced the pain scores in both phases of the test. In contrast, sodium salicylate, as positive control, only reduced the chronic phase of pain scores.Taken together, the results form this study showed that prolonged orally administered pepper seems to attenuated nocicpetive responses through central and peripheral mechanisms in streptozotocin-induced diabetes is rats. Further studies are neede in order to assess this effect in diabetic patients.