European Journal of Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences

FULL BLOOD COUNT VARIABILITY IN FEMALE ALBINO WISTAR RATS EXPOSED TO ORAL CONSUMPTION OF CALABASH CHALK COMPOSED OF SPECIFIC PHYSICOCHEMICALS

Agbam E. Treasure, *Stella U. Ken-Ezihuo and Moore-Igwe Beatrice W.

ABSTRACT

Background: Calabash Chalk consumpuion is a common habit among a lot of persons especially women in African part of the world. Regional differences have been reported in the concentration and Physicochemical constituents of calabash chalk, this study therefore, aimed at evaluating the variability of Haematologic parameters of female albino Wistar rats fed orally with calabash chalk containing high quantity specific physicochemicals, such as hexamethyl- Arsenous acid and quinoline Acridine. Materials and Methods: After the physicochemical, analsyis of calabash chalk purchsed from mile 3 market in port Harcourt, 56 rats which weighed between 75-200g, purchased from Department of Animal Science in Rivers State University, Port Harcourt were used for the experiment. The rats were domicile in the animal house of Department of Animal and Environmental Biology of same University. Six rats grouped into two having 3 each were used for pilot study to determine the median lethal dose (LD50) of the calabash chalk. None of the rats died or showed any sign of toxicity, the LD50 from the pilot study was used to estimate the various grade doses used for the study. The remaining 50 rats were divided into groups of 10 each according to their body weights and kept in well-ventilated cages tagged (1-5). The rats were allowed to acclimatize for 1 week and they were fed with standard feeds and clean water. The first group (control) was fed water and food only, while the test groups were also fed 200, 300, 400 and 500mg/kg body weight of calabash chalk respectively. After 30 days treatment, the animals were sacrificed, samples were taken in Ethylene-diamine Tetra Acetic (EDTA) bottles for evaluation of Haematologic paramters in the laboratory. Results obtained in this study were statistically analyzed using the Statistical Analysis Software (SAS), version 9.4. The results were expressed as mean ± standard error of mean (mean±SEM). One way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), was used for comparison of mean in the various groups. The level of significance was set at P<0.05. Results: Significant increase in the WBC and Lymphocytes was observed for the test groups as against the control group at p<0.05. There were decrease in the PCV, HB and Platelet values of the test group compared to control groups at p<0.05. Conclusion: It was concluded that oral consumption of calabash chalk had adverse effect, on the complete blood count of the Wister albino rats rats resulting to low haemoglobin content, low haematocrit, leucocytosis and thrombocytopenia. Consumption of this substance should therefore, be discouraged.

Keywords: female albino Wistar rats, Calabash Chalk, Haematologic parameters, oral consumption.