Abstract: Most southern Nigerian diets are laced with fat, spurring anxiety of diet-induced hyperlipidaemia. Recently, there have been a number of studies involving commonly consumed oily products, to determine the cause and effect of hyperlipidaemia on the population. In the current study, we examined the effect of egusi melon consumption on the serum lipid profile of Wistar rats, comparing results obtained with those of rats fed on normal mouse feed pellets. The dehulled seeds of Citrullus colocynthis L. obtained from the local market were ground into powder form and mixed with the normal commercial feed ration for subsequent administration to ten rats for four weeks. Another group of ten rats, serving as control were administered with the commercial feed ration only. Results show significantly lowered values of Total Cholesterol, Triglyceride, HDL-Chol and LDL-Chol for rats fed with the extract of C. colocynthis. The mean TC, TG, HDL and LDL values [113.0 ± 1.4 mg/dl, 74.7 ± 2.1 mg/dl, 49.4 ± 1.1 mg/dl and 48.7 ± 2.9 mg/dl] were obtained respectively for rats fed with the melon and normal ration admixture, compared to animals fed on normal commercial feed pellet only (140.4 ±0.88 mg/dl; 85.64 ± 0.94 mg/dl; 69.56 ± 1.31 mg/dl; 53.71 ± 0.91mg/dl respectively). This study confirms recent findings that show that melon diet induces a hypolipidaemic effect.
Keywords: diet, melon, lipids, heart, rats, serum.
Title: The Hypolipidemic Effect of Citrullus Colocynthis Diet on the Lipid Profile of Wistar Rats
Author: Akinleye, Waheed A., Ilesanmi, Ayodele O., Oni, Odunayo
International Journal of Life Sciences Research
ISSN 2348-313X (Print), ISSN 2348-3148 (online)
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