beneficial effects of young coconut juice feeding on the lipid, renal and liver profiles, in ovariectomized rats: preliminary novel findings

The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of feeding young coconut juice (YCJ), known to contain - sitosterol, to ovariectomized rats, a model for postmenopausal women, on the lipid, renal and liver metabolism profiles. Four groups of female rats (6 in each group) were included in this study. These included sham-operated, ovariectomized (ovx), ovx receiving estradiol benzoate (EB) injections intraperitoneally, and ovx receiving YCJ orally. At the end of the third and the fourth week of study, the rats were sacrificed and their serum estradiol (E2) was analyzed. The uterus was removed along with the kidney and liver. The latter was paraffin processed for histopathological assessment. In contast with the 7 days treatments, all parameters of the 14 days treatment had improved. After 14 days of treatment, the circulating levels of BUN, creatinine, cholesterol, triglyceride, LDL, AST, ALT, ALP, total protein and albumin of ovx+YCJ group were not significantly different from the sham and ovx groups. Only the serum HDL level of the ovx+YCJ group was significantly higher than that of the sham group. The histopathological assessment of the liver and kidney showed no significant changes when compared with the control groups. Glycogen accumulation appeared in the cytoplasm of the hepatocytes particularly in the ovx+YCJ group but significant changes of the hepatocytes containing glycogen were not detected. No other abnormal features were seen in any of the four groups. The %age uterine/body weights indicated that YCJ feeding in ovx rats at 100 mL/kgBW for up to two weeks did not cause increased uterine weight. In summary, this study confirmed that feeding YCJ had beneficial effects on the serum lipid profile, and maintained liver and renal functions for up to 2 weeks after administration.