Bamboo salt attenuates CCl4-induced hepatic damage in Sprague-Dawley rats.
- Author:
Xin ZHAO
1
;
Jia Le SONG
;
Jeung Ha KIL
;
Kun Young PARK
Author Information
- Publication Type:Original Article
- Keywords: Bamboo salt; hepatic damage; CCl4; cytokines; inflammation
- MeSH: Alanine Transaminase; Animals; Aspartate Aminotransferases; Blotting, Western; Carbon Tetrachloride; Cytokines; Inflammation; Interferons; Interleukins; L-Lactate Dehydrogenase; Liver; Medicine, Traditional; Necrosis; Rats; Rats, Sprague-Dawley; RNA, Messenger; Salts; Tumor Necrosis Factor-alpha
- From:Nutrition Research and Practice 2013;7(4):273-280
- CountryRepublic of Korea
- Language:English
- Abstract: Bamboo salt, a Korean folk medicine, is prepared with solar salt (sea salt) and baked several times at high temperatures in a bamboo case. In this study, we compared the preventive effects of bamboo salt and purified and solar salts on hepatic damage induced by carbon tetrachloride in Sprague-Dawley rats. Compared with purified and solar salts, bamboo salts prevented hepatic damage in rats, as evidenced by significantly reduced serum levels of aspartate aminotransferase, alanine aminotransferase, and lactate dehydrogenase (P < 0.05). Bamboo salt (baked 9x) triggered the greatest reduction in these enzyme levels. In addition, it also reduced the levels of the proinflammatory cytokines interleukin (IL)-6, interferon (IFN)-gamma, and tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-alpha. Histopathological sections of liver tissue demonstrated the protective effect of bamboo salt, whereas sections from animals treated with the other salt groups showed a greater degree of necrosis. We also performed reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction and western blot analyses of the inflammation-related genes iNOS, COX-2, TNF-alpha, and IL-1beta in rat liver tissues. Bamboo salt induced a significant decrease (~80%) in mRNA and protein expression levels of COX-2, iNOS, TNF-alpha, and IL-1beta, compared with the other salts. Thus, we found that baked bamboo salt preparations could prevent CCl4-induced hepatic damage in vivo.
