TY - EJOU AU - ZANONI, MARLI APARECIDA DOS SANTOS PEREIRA, MARIA CLAÚDIA BAGATIN, JACQUELINE NELISIS TI - Effects of the ascorbic acid supplementation on NADH-diaphorase myenteric neurons in the duodenum of diabetic rats T2 - BIOCELL PY - 2006 VL - 30 IS - 2 SN - 1667-5746 AB - We assessed the ascorbic acid (AA) supplementation on the myenteric neurons in the duodenum of rats. Fifteen rats with 90 days of age were divided into three groups: control (C), diabetics (D) and ascorbic acid treated diabetics (DA). After 120 days of daily treatment with AA, the duodenum was submitted to the NADH-diaphorase (NADH-d) histochemical technique, which allowed us to evaluate the neuronal density in an area of 8.96 mm2 for each duodenum, and also to measure the cellular profile area of 500 neurons per group. The supplementation promoted an increase on AA levels. The neuronal density (p <0.05) was higher in the group DA when compared to group D. There were no significant differences in the neuronal areas, when we compared groups C (204 ± 16.5) and D (146.3 ± 35.84) to groups D and DA (184.5 ± 5.6) (p> 0.05). The AA-supplementation avoided the density reduction of the NADHd myenteric neurons in the duodenum of diabetic rats. KW - diabetes mellitus KW - ascorbic acid KW - myenteric neurons DO - 10.32604/biocell.2006.30.295