Effects of Palm Oil Fractions on the Aortic Cell of Wistar Rats: A Pilot Study of the Histochemical Evaluation

Aims: To investigate the effect (s) of palm oil fractions {Palm Olein (PO) & Palm Stearin (PS)} on the aortic cell of Wistar rats.

Study Design: The histological and cholesterol blood sample examinations were done on the aorta of the Wistar rats, to investigate the effects of the palm oil on the animals.

Methodology: Twelve (12) male Wistar rats were procured from the animal house of the University of Ilorin, four (4) animals in each group A (control), B (PO) and C (PS), and the animals were about of the same age. The experiment was carried out within the period of eight (8) weeks with 5ml of respective palm oil and rat pellets given to each animal in their different groups (B and C) three times in a day orally, and group A was fed with rat pellets only. A day after the 8th week, the animals were sacrificed using cervical dislocation under chloroform anaesthesia, after which blood samples were collected from the orbital sinus of the experimental rat, different levels of cholesterol were tested for; Total Cholesterol (TC), Low Density Lipoprotein Cholesterol (LDL-C) and High Density Lipoprotein Cholesterol (HDL-C) using Randox Lipid kits. The aorta were extracted and fixed in a 10% formalin for 24 hours before preparing for histological examinations.

Results: Histologically, there was no disarrangement in the organization of the three (3) layers of the tissue (tunica intima, tunica media and tunica adventia) in all the three (3) groups, except in the PS group, where a distortion at the adventia layer was observed, but,this could not be really suggested to be a deposition of any kind. The PO group was observed to have higher TC and LDL-C, also, high TC and LDL-C were found in PS group as against the values obtained in group A. This suggested that, PO and PS did not affect the TC, LDLC or HDLC levels of rats in any way in this study. However, PO group had 139.00±7.87 mg/dl of TC and 55.50±3.87 mg/dl of LDL-C results as against 90.25±3.59 mg/dl of TC and 18.50±2.65 mg/dl of LDL-C in group A.

Conclusion: It can be concluded that, Low Density Lipoprotein Cholesterol (LDL-C) in the aortic cell of Palm Olein (PO) treated group could be a factor that brought about the palmitic acids effects and the same effect was observed in Total Cholesterol (TC) of PS-treated group. Both Palm Olein (PO) and Palm Stearin (PS) have little effects on the aortic tissue of the animals, although, the effect has never been reported to be detrimental (histologically and histochemically).