ABSTRACT
Background: the use of food additives is one of the most important problems in the human health nutrition field. Food additives are widely used for various purposes; including preservation, coloring, and sweetening, however, the physiological and biochemical changes may be produced
Aim of the work: was to investigate the protective role of royal jelly [RJ] against abnormalities in metabolic biochemical parameters that induced by these food additives in male albino rats
Materials and Methods: thirty young male albino rats with an average body weight 120-140 g were divided into three groups [10/cage]; Group I: served as normal control group, Group II: rats orally administrated with the mixture which consists of sodium nitrite [NaNO2 0.1 mg/kg b.wt./ day], annatto [0.065 mg/kg b.wt./day] and monosodium glutamate [MSG 15 mg/kg b.wt./day] and Group III: rats orally administrated with the previous mixture and then orally administrated with royal jelly [14.28 mg/kg b.wt./day soluble in maize oil]. At the end of the experiment, blood samples were collected for biochemical estimations which including levels of serum glucose, creatinine, urea, testosterone, thyroid hormones [T3 and T4], activities of AST and ALT, total protein [TP], albumin, total cholesterol, triglycerides, high-density lipoprotein [HDL-c] and low-density lipoprotein [LDL-c]
Results: the present study showed marked elevation in levels of fasting blood glucose, activities of AST, ALT, levels of serum urea, creatinine, TC, TG, LDL-c, VLDLand ratios of TC/HDL-c and LDL-c/HDL-c [risk factors] as well as albumin /globulin ratio and serum thyroid hormones [T3andT4] accompanied with significant reduction in the body weight, serum total proteins, albumin, globulin, albumin/creatinine, testosterone and HDL-C concentrations in the group that administrated with the mixture which consists of [NaNO2, MSG and annatto] as compared to control rats. While administration with royal jelly significantly ameliorated the disturbed biochemical parameters and showed significant improvement in most of these parameters
Conclusion: it could be concluded that royal jelly offers a therapeutic advantage that minimizes the metabolic abnormalities and biochemical changes which induced by these food additives