Thesis Abstract

Kola bark extract have been widely used in tradition medicine for thousand of year, it improves liver functions and provides protection against high fat fed metabolic rats. Present investigations were carried out on the hepatoprotective role of Kola bark extract meal treatment to high fat fed wistar rat. Healthy adult male wistar rats were divided into four groups Group I rats were fed a standard Laboratory diet (groups match) (20g/rat/day), Group II rats were fed a high-fat diet alone (3.6g/rat/day), Group III rats were fed with combined mixture of 70% of high-fat diet with 30% Kola bark meal (9.8g/rat /day), Group/ V rats were fed with high fat diet and was administered with Lipitor (Atovastatin) (10mg/rat/day) . The rats were sacrificed at the end of the experiment (two weeks) period. The high fat fed rat substantially elevated its serum and liver tissue AST, ALT, ALP, bilirubin with decreased in total protein levels. Where as the levels of all parameters significantly restored towards normalization by the kola bark husk meal treatment. The results obtained suggest that the Kola bark meal have potent hepatoprotective action on high fat fed rats. A companion of the performance in both Kola bark meal and Lipitor treatment on high fat fed rat in respect of hepatoprotective role is clearly indicator that the Kola bark meal treatment was more and related to the result of Lipitor as well as to the normal level.

Thesis Overview

BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY

Liver is the largest and most complex internal organ in the body. It plays an important role in the maintenance of internal environment through its multiple and diverse functions. Liver is involved in several vital functions such as metabolism, secretion and storage. Hepatitis or inflammatory disorder involves inflammation and damage to the hepatocytes. Hepatitis is one of the most prevalent diseases in the world. Every year 18,000 people had been reported to die due to liver cirrhosis caused by viral hepatitis [L] Ectopic fat storage occurs in obesity particularly in the liver leading to a condition termed nonalcoholic fatty liver disease [NAFLD] characterized by varying degree of liver injury that progresses from steatosis to tratohepatitis, fibrosis and necrosis Due to its prominent association with IR (insulin resistance). Obesity, NAFLD is regarded as the hepatic manifestation of metabolite [3] syndrome. Liver has great capacity to detoxicate toxic substances.

Kola pod is the traditional health food around the world. Kola pod Husk meal is the residue after grinding the pod of kola and filtration, and it is an excellent source in slightly high in fiber (16.74%), low in crude protein (9.98%), moderate NFE (42.391) and metabolizable energy 2497 kcal/kg, and ash content is relatively high. (13.26%). when companied with the values reported by (Oluokun, 1999) ;(Hamzat and Babatunde, 2001). These differences might be due to varietals differenced and shelf life of the test ingredient before analysis. However, the crude protein content fairly put kola pod husk meal (KPHM) with feed ingredients like Sorghum while the fibre content put it in same proximate composition with Bremer‘s grains. Kola pod being one of the important pods for medical treatment in the world. The kola pod husk provides some essential materials for doth drying. The pod bark, when mixed with some ingredients is used in traditional medicine to reduce Labour pains.

The bark is used in treating swellings and fresh wounds. The roots provide excellent chewing sticks for cleaning the teeth and the wood is used in local carvings coachwork and boatbuilding. Lipid refers to the different kind of fats present in the bodies of human plasma include triglyceride (TG), phospholipids (PL), cholesterol esters (CE), and free cholesterol (FC) and non-esterified fatty acid (NEFA. Each lipid plays a different role in our bodies yet all of them except free cholesterol (FC) contain esters of long chain fatty acid in their structures. Lipids are insoluble in plasma due to their non- polar structures thus; they need some carriers that are soluble in polar and non- polar environment. Lipids are packaged and carried in the form of lipoprotein, which is a molecule that contains both protein (i.e. apolipoprotein) and lipids