Diabetes incidence is rising globally at an accelerating rate causing issues at both the individual and societal levels. However, partly inspired by
Ayurvedic medicine, a naturally occurring compound called
pterostilbene has been demonstrated to protect against diabetes symptoms, though mainly in rats. The purpose of this study was to investigate the putative protective effect of
pterostilbene on the two main aspects of diabetes, namely
insulin resistance and decreased insulin secretion, in mice. To accomplish this, we employed diet-induced obese as well as
streptozotocin-induced diabetic C57BL/6NTac mice for fasting
glucose homeostasis assessment, tolerance tests and pancreas perfusions. In addition, we used the polygenic model of diabetes TALLYHO/JngJ to assess for prevention of β-cell burnout. We found that the diet-induced obese C57BL/6NTac mice were
insulin resistant, but that
pterostilbene had no impact on this or on overall
glucose regulation. We further found that the reported protective effect of
pterostilbene against
streptozotocin-induced diabetes was absent in C57BL/6NTac mice, despite a promising pilot experiment. Lastly, we observed that
pterostilbene does not prevent or delay onset of β-cell burnout in TALLYHO/JngJ mice. In conjunction with the literature, our findings suggest variations in the response to
pterostilbene between species or between strains of species.