Olax viridis is a plant used for its ethnomedical properties. This experiment was focused at assessing the prophylactic activities of O. viridis against carbon tetrachloride (CCl4) - induced hepatotoxicity. Twenty-five male albino rats were randomly divided into five categories. Categories 1 and 2 received distilled water, category 3 received the extract at 100 mg/kg body weight (bw), 4 received the extract at 200 mg/kg while 5 received Silymarin at 100 mg/kg. The route of administration was per os, 12 hourly for five days. One hour after the last treatment, groups 2-5 were challenged orally with 0.15 ml/kg of CCl4 in olive oil. Eighteen hours later, blood samples were collected for serum assay of aspartate amino-transferase, alanine amino-transferase, alkaline phosphatase, total bilirubin and total protein. The effect of the extract on CCl4 alteration of pentobarbitone sleeping time was assessed using another 5 groups of five rats each. The animals were treated as described for the first experiment. There was no significant difference (P < 0.05) between the serum biochemical markers of the animals given 100mg/kg bw of the extract, those given 100mg/kg bw of silymarin and those of the control group but they were significantly different (P > 0.05) from those of the category treated with 200mg/kg of the extract and the category given only CCl4. Similar trend was observed in the pentobarbitone-induced sleeping time experiment. This study reveals that the methanolic root extract of O. viridis can protect the liver against CCl4 induced hepatotoxicity.
Obiekwe Uchechukwu Chukwudi, Nwaigwe Chioma Uchenna, Nwaigwe Chukwuemeka Onyekachi, Madubunyi Innocent Ifeanyi, Mbaegbu Edmund Chidiebere
