To observe the effects of Suaeda salsa on the blood glucose and expressions of Bax,Bcl-2 and Caspase-3 in the pancreas of type 2 diabetic (T2DM) rats,and to explore the mechanism of improving the metabolism of sugar by S. salsa.A type 2 diabetic rat model was built by combining high-fat diet with streptozotocin (STZ),the fasting blood glucose (FBG),plasma glucose-2 h (PG2h),oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT) and area under the curve (AUC) were measured.The glycosylated hemoglobin (GHb) and C-peptide (C-P) in the serum were tested and insulin resistance index (IR index) was calculated.Pathomorphological changes in the pancreatic tissues were observed by means of hematoxylin and eosin (HE) staining.The mean optical density of Bax and Bcl-2 proteins in the pancreatic tissues were tested by immunohistochemistry (IHC),and the expression levels of Bax,Bcl-2,Caspase-3 and cleaved-Caspase-3 proteins in the pancreatic tissues were tested by Western blot.The results showed that compared with the normal group,the FBG,PG2h,OGTT-AUC and GHb of the model group were significantly increased,C-P was significantly decreased (P<0.01) and the expression of Bcl-2 protein in the pancreatic tissues was significantly down-regulated (P<0.01),while the expressions of Bax,Caspase-3 and cleaved-Caspase-3 proteins were significantly up-regulated (P<0.01).Compared with the model group,FBG,PG2h,OGTT-AUC and GHb were significantly decreased,while C-P was significantly increased in the Suaeda salsa group.The expression of Bcl-2 protein in the pancreatic tissues was significantly up-regulated,while the expressions of Bax,Caspase-3 and cleaved-Caspase-3 proteins were significantly down-regulated (P<0.01).The present study showed that Suaeda salsa can improve the glucose metabolism in T2DM rats,and its mechanism may be related to the up-regulation of Bcl-2,the down-regulation of Bax and Caspase-3,and the decrease of the expression of cleaved-Caspase-3 protein in the pancreatic tissues.