Polysaccharide peptide (PSP) ganoderma lucidum: A potential inducer for vascular repair in type 2 diabetes mellitus model

Introduction: The increasing blood glucose level due to insulin resistance which occurs in diabetes mellitus (DM) may cause vascular damage. This study aims to prove the effect of the polysaccharide peptide (PsP) Ganoderma lucidum on improving vascular damage through an increase of circulating endothelial cells and circulating endothelial cells (CEC) ratio, decreased H2O2, triglyceride (TG), total cholesterol (TC) and insulin resistance in type 2 DM. Methods: Our study is a true experimental study with randomized posttest control group design that used 35 Wistar rats divided into five groups: Normal, control (+) and three groups of different variant PsP doses 50, 150 and 300 mg/kg BW (n=7). Results: By using one-way ANOVA and post-hoc Duncan test, the results show a significant increase of endothelial progenitor cell (EPC) concentration (p=0.000) and ratio EPC:CEC (0.000) by dose-dependent fashion and also reduced CEC concentration (p=0.001), H2O2 (p=0.03), TG (p=0.001), TC (p=0.01) and insulin resistance (p=0.003). Conclusion: In this study, PsP induced endothelial repairing process and reduced the risk factor with 300 mg/kg BW as optimum dose. However, further research on EPC and CEC detection markers is important. Further research on PsP and clinical trial for commercial uses is also needed.