Safety assessment of the fruit extract of Acacia nilotica Linn. Willd ex Delile using rat models

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Research Paper 01/04/2017
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Safety assessment of the fruit extract of Acacia nilotica Linn. Willd ex Delile using rat models

Juliette Koubé, Sélestin Sokeng Dongmo, Valentin Désiré Guiama, Aïssatou Doubla, Jeweldai Vedekoi, Michelle Goulimé, Elizabeth Ngo Bum
Int. J. Biosci. 10(4), 81-92, April 2017.
Copyright Statement: Copyright 2017; The Author(s).
License: CC BY-NC 4.0

Abstract

The Acacia nilotica fruits are commonly used for their medicinal and food merits. The present work was carried out to evaluate the innocuousness of an Acacia nilotica aqueous fruit extract (ANFE) using acute and sub-chronic oral administration in rats. ANFE doses of 1, 2, 4, 8 and 16 g/kg were orally administered to rats, the mortality and toxic effects were observed for 14 days. For sub-chronic test, ANFE doses of 200, 400, 800 mg/kg and satellite group (800 mg/kg) were orally given to rats daily for 35 days, control was distilled water. Food behaviour, body weight, food efficiency and weight of faeces were followed during the treatment. At the end of administration, all the rats were kept fasted overnight and then sacrificed under anaesthesia. Blood was then collected from jugular vein for haematological and biochemical analyses. Results show that a single dose of ANFEs oral administration did not cause any mortality; LD50 was > 16 g/kg. Daily oral administration of ANFE increased significantly the food and water consumption, but decreased the faeces weight after 2 weeks of treatment. However, no significant modifications were observed in the haematological values, markers of renal and hepatic functions, body weight, absolute and relative organ weights, structures of kidney and liver. There were remarked hypoglycaemic, hypocholesterolaemic and hypolipidaemic effects of ANFE. These results suggest that oral administration of ANFE does not induce oral acute and sub-chronic toxicities. Therefore, these safety levels of A. nilotica fruit aqueous extract can be helpful for its optimal utilisation.

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