Hepatoprotective effect of food preservatives (butylated hydroxyanisole, butylated hydroxytoluene) on carbon tetrachloride-induced hepatotoxicity in rat

Carbon tetrachloride (CCl4), a hepatotoxic agent is widely used to study the toxic mechanisms in experimental animals. This study was carried out to establish the hepatoprotective measures of food preservative antioxidants butylated hydroxyanisole and butylated hydroxytolune (BHA, BHT) when mixed with food towards carbon tetrachloride (CCl4) intoxication (230 mg/ kg b wt/rat/day) in rat. Biochemical markers like serum glutamate pyruvate tranaminase (AST), serum glutamate oxaloacetate transaminase (ALT), alkaline phosphatase (ALP) and bilirubin content, antioxidant enzymes such as SOD, CAT, GPx, and malondialdehyde (MDA) as the end product of lipid peroxidanion were measured. The results had shown the elevated level of AST (121.16%), ALT (124.68%), ALP (122.41%) an, bilirubin content (57.14%) after CCl4 treatment. Marked decrease of activity of antioxidant enzymes such as SOD (85.36%), CAT (67.47%), GPx (50.7%) had indicated that the ROS mediated toxicity and pretreatment of BHA and BHT restored the activity of these enzymes. High level of MDA content with reduced GSH value was also observed due to oxidative stress. The hepatic antioxidant status was restored with the food preservative (BHA, BHT) antioxidant treatment which had indicated the significant protective effect against CCl4 induced hepatotoxicity and finally confirmed by histopathological studies. Keywords: Butylated hydroxyanisole, Butylated hydroxytoluene, Hepatoprotection, CCl4 - intoxicated rat

Study on South African Indigenous Teas—Antioxidant Potential, Nutritional Content, and Hypoxia-Induced Cyclooxygenase Inhibition on U87 MG Cell Line

Background: This study comparatively assessed seven indigenous traditional tea plants on several attributes that included antioxidant, nutritional, caffeine contents, and cyclooxygenase activity. Methodology: Nutritional content of all tea plants were determined for energy, fat, carbohydrates, total sugars, dietary fiber and amino acids. Antioxidant potential and the antioxidant potentiating secondary metabolites were also measured and compared. Further, we investigated the tea plants for any role they would have on cyclooxygenase (COX) activity on cobalt chloride (CoCl2) induced human glioma cell lines (U87MG). Results: The tea plants were found non-cytotoxic at concentrations tested against the human Chang liver and HeK 293 kidney cells and were found to be naturally caffeine free. The lowest and highest extraction yield among the tea plants was 7.1% for B. saligna and 15.48% for L. scaberrimma respectively. On average, the flavonol content was 12 to 8 QE/g, ORAC 800 µmol TE/g, TEAC 150 µmol TE/g, FRAP 155 µmol AAE/g, polyphenols 40 mg GAE/g, flavanols 0.35 mg CE/g, flavonols 12 mg QE/g and total flavonoid content (TFC) 180 µg QE/mg. The COX activity has been found to be inhibited by a dose-dependent manner by L. scaberrimma, B. saligna and L. javanica. Conclusion: The results further support competitive value of tea plants and need for improved and further development