Abstract

Diabetes is a global health problem and a chronic endocrine disorder, and nonhealing wounds in diabetic individuals place a substantial burden on healthcare systems. Various approaches have been employed for the management of diabetic wounds. Traditional medical systems such as Ayurveda and Indian folk medicine have long utilised honey (H), ghee (G), Glycyrrhiza glabra (GG), and Nerium indicum (NI) for wound treatment. However, their individual or combined effects on diabetic wounds remain inadequately characterised. This study was designed to evaluate the efficacy of these traditional medicines, applied singly or in combination, in promoting the healing of excision and incision wounds in streptozotocin-induced diabetic rats (STZ-induced model). Biomechanical, histological, and immunohistochemical parameters were assessed at two time points: Days 8 and 16 for excision wounds and Days 6 and 11 for incision wounds. The results revealed increased wound-breaking strength, accelerated epithelialisation, earlier wound closure, enhanced vascularity, and more orderly collagen rearrangement in the treated groups, accompanied by modulation of IL-1β and myofibroblast activity, which was consistent with improved inflammatory regulation and tissue remodelling. Compared to the diabetic controls, certain treatment groups—ghee (re-epithelialisation of the excision wounds) and NI (vascularity assessment)—although showed trends toward improvement, the difference did not reach statistical significance. Among the test materials, honey-treated animals consistently demonstrated favourable outcomes across multiple parameters, while other treatment groups, including GG, also showed improvements compared with the control. These findings provide evidence for the efficacy of these traditional medicines in diabetic wound healing and offer an integrated evaluation of their effects in a diabetic model. Furthermore, the insights obtained from this study may facilitate future investigations into the underlying mechanisms and support the development of therapeutically relevant strategies for managing complex diabetic wounds.

Key words: Wound healing, Diabetes, Honey, Ghee, Glycyrrhiza glabra, Nerium indicum, Interleukins, Myofibroblasts