Anthocyanins are known cyto-protective agents against various stress conditions. In this studycardio-protective effect of anthocyanins from black rice against diabetic mellitus (DM) was eval-uated using a streptozotocin (STZ)-induced DM rat model. Five-week-old male Wistar rats wereadministered with STZ (55 mg kg21, IP) to induce DM; rats in the treatment group received250 mg oral anthocyanin/kg/day during the 4-week treatment period. DM and the control ratsreceived normal saline through oral gavage. The results reveal that STZ-induced DM elevates myo-cardial apoptosis and associated proapoptotic proteins but down-regulates the proteins of IGF1Rmediated survival signaling mechanism. Furthermore, the functional parameters such as theejection-fraction and fraction-shortening in the DM rat hearts declined considerably. However,the rats treated with anthocyanins significantly reduced apoptosis and the associated proapoptoticproteins and further increased the survival signals to restore the cardiac functions in DM rats.Anthocyanin supplementation enhances cardiomyocyte survival and restores cardiac function.KEYWORDSanthocyanin, cardiac apoptosis, diabetes mellitus, IGFI-R, streptozotocin
