A Review on Experimental Methods of Diabetic Research: Advantages and Limitations

Globally diabetes mellitus has become a medical problem with an increase in prevalence, morbidity and mortality. To date, it has no cure yet, however, medical care, healthy life style and exercise programme are provided to the patients to alleviate the diabetic symptoms and avoid complications. Animal model remains the best model for intensive diabetic research because of its flexibility, in order to investigate the possible curative and preventive measures for this life threatening metabolic disease. The purpose of this review is to update and compile all the documented procedures, methods or techniques in diabetic study using experimental animal models and highlight on their advantages and limitations. Some of the techniques used in studying diabetes mellitus are islets cells autoimmune antibodies, cytotoxic chemical substances, high sugar high fat diet, steroid therapy, surgical removal of the pancreatic tissue, transgenic animal model, normoglycemic animal and genetically modified animal model. Most of these techniques are currently applied in diabetic research while a few techniques are rarely used due to their nature, cost and time consuming. Hence, this review may help the researchers to select the most appropriate procedure to be used in their diabetic study using experimental animal model to suit their target and desired objective.