Quercetin and Omega-3 fatty acid averts the deleterious effects of Cadmium on NO, NOS, anti-oxidants and MDA levels in rats

Overview

Gekpe and colleagues tested whether quercetin and omega-3 fatty acid altered cadmium-induced changes in nitric-oxide, antioxidant, and malondialdehyde endpoints in rats. This is lane a4 toxicology and co-treatment context, not olive-oil occurrence evidence: cadmium chloride was deliberately administered, and olive oil was used only as a sham-control vehicle. The paper reports cadmium dose, LD50, group size, and source-printed serum biomarker values for several endpoints.

Key numbers

• Main experiment: seven groups with n = 6 rats per group, treated for 56 days.
• Acute toxicity: the source reports cadmium chloride LD50 = 3.90 mg/kg body weight; the experimental cadmium test dose was 2.0 mg/kg.
• Cadmium exposure in the main experiment: cadmium chloride at 2mg/kg body weight, intraperitoneally, once every 5 days.
• Co-treatment doses: quercetin 20mg/kg subcutaneously; omega-3 fatty acid 14.29mg/kg orally; combined group received both 20mg/kg quercetin and 14.29mg/kg omega-3.
• Vehicle/sham controls: DMSO (2%) at 1mL/kg orally once daily; olive oil 0.1 mL/kg orally once daily.
• Nitric oxide activity, controls vs cadmium (Cd) group: NC 34.05 ± 0.45, SC-1 35.21 ±1.48, SC-2 34.63 ± 0.70, and Cd 27.09 ± 0.90 µmol/L; the Cd group was significantly lower at p<0.05.
• Nitric oxide synthase activity, controls vs Cd group: NC 15.92 ± 0.14, SC-1 16.03 ± 0.48, SC-2 15.60 ± 0.56, and Cd 11.69 ± 0.46 µmol/L; the Cd group was significantly lower at p<0.05.
• Superoxide dismutase activity, controls vs Cd group: NC 9.24 ± 0.12, SC-1 9.33 ± 0.10, SC-2 9.43 ± 0.10, and Cd 5.95 ± 0.39 ng/mL; the Cd group was significantly lower at p<0.05.
• Catalase activity, controls and treatment groups: NC 80.99 ± 0.65, SC-1 78.33 ±1.70, SC-2 79.40 ±1.25, Cd 59.16 ±1.11, Cd + QT 60.94 ± 0.30, Cd + OM-3 66.15 ±1.46, and Cd + QT + OM-3 66.38 ±1.24 pg/mL.
• Glutathione peroxidase control values: NC 3.66 ± 0.27, SC-1 4.08 ± 0.19, and SC-2 3.95 ± 0.16 ng/mL; the text states significant p<0.05 reductions in the Cd-treated group, but the extracted paragraph repeats 5.95 ± 0.39, which conflicts with the described reduction and Figure 23.
• Malondialdehyde control values: NC 12.75 ± 0.08, SC-1 12.34 ± 0.19, and SC-2 12.50 ± 0.21 nmol/mL; the source states that the Cd-treated group increased significantly at p<0.05, but the exact Cd-group MDA mean is not cleanly extractable from the text.

Methods (brief)

The authors used male Wistar rats from the animal house of the Department of Physiology, University of Calabar, Nigeria. Cadmium chloride, quercetin, omega-3 fatty acid, DMSO, and olive-oil vehicle groups were compared after a 56-day regimen. Serum NO and NOS were assayed by Griess-reagent nitrite measurement; SOD, CAT, GPx, and MDA were measured using spectrophotometric or ELISA-style assays described in the methods. Data were presented as mean ± SEM and analyzed by one-way ANOVA followed by Tukey post hoc test in SPSS Version 25.0, with P<0.05 considered significant.

Implications

Microbiome: No microbiome endpoints.

Related evidence

• Cadmium
• Health

Update history

The five most recent substantive edits to this page, classified major (evidence or structure moved), correction (a published value or statement was wrong and has been fixed), or minor (narrative rewritten without changing the underlying evidence). Each description is derived from what the edit did to this page; the linked commit is the authoritative record, routine regeneration passes are excluded, and the full version history lives in git. When DOI minting comes online (see schema docs), each entry below will also link to a version-pinned DataCite DOI.