Hepatoprotective and Antioxidant Activity of Wheat Germ Oil Against Nicotine Induced Oxidative Stress

Rational: Smoking kills more than one billion current smokers worldwide prematurely due to various tobacco-related diseases. Smoking contributes to multiple well-documented adverse health effects, including heart disease, pulmonary disease and lung and other cancers in both industrialized and developing countries. Tobacco smoking is a leading cause of preventable disease and death. If the current trend remains unchanged, the annual number of deaths due to tobacco will reach more than 10 millions by 2025. People who quit smoking can, for the most part, reverse these risks. Oxidative stress is believed to be involved in the pathophysiology of a number of chronic diseases including liver diseases, atherosclerosis, diabetes and cataracts. Objective: This study was aimed to assess the protective effect of wheat germ oil the role of wheat germ as antioxidant and its value in protection of liver cells against the in vivo modulation of nicotine induced oxidative stress using rat as a model. Setting and Design: Thirty six male albino rats (Sprague Dawley), were classified into three groups (12 animals per group). Gr. I: Served as control group, where animals were received 0.1 ml corn oil for successive thirty days. Gr. II: Served as nicotine group, where rats received intraperitoneal (ip) injection of 0.5 mg nicotine base /Kg body weight. Gr. III: Served as wheat germ oil treated group pre-injected with nicotine, where rats received injection of 0.5 mg nicotine base /Kg body weight (ip) followed by daily administration of wheat germ oil (54mg/kg body weight dissolved in 0.1 ml corn oil), orally for successive thirty days. At the end study terminated, animals sacrificed and blood was drawn from the heart and sera were kept in fridge until time of biochemical analysis as well as liver tissues were collected for both biochemical assessment and histopathological evaluation. The obtained data were statistically analyzed by one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) using SPSS 16 software package. Results revealed that in The results showed that food intake and body weight gain of rats injected with nicotine were significantly lower than those of control rats. Serum liver enzyme glutamic pyruvic transaminase (SGPT) and serum glutamic oxaloacetic transaminase (SGOT) activities and total bilirubin (Bt) were significantly increased due to injection of nicotine (ip). The homogenate livers were decreased significantly in superoxide dismutase (SOD), glutathione peroxidase (GSH-Px and nitric oxide (NO) activity in addition to non-protein sulfhydryl groups and vitamin E when rats injected with by nicotine (ip). On the other hand, a significant increase in lipid peroxidation products was shown by measuring malondialdehyde (MDA). A significant improvement was recorded in rats administrated wheat germ oil (WGO) parallel with rats injected intraperitoneal with nicotine for thirty successive days. The histopathological examination of the liver tissues of animals injected with nicotine showed different lesions but administration with wheat germ oil (WGO) caused an improvement in liver as compared with nicotine group. In Conclusion: Oral administrations of wheat germ oil are effective in reducing the toxic effect of nicotine and are also effective in oxidative stress damage produced by nicotine. So wheat germ oil is recommended to be given to individuals who are exposed to environments polluted with nicotine.