ABSTRACT
One of the biological changes associated with aging is increased free radical formation, with subsequent damage to cellular processes. Aging increased oxidative injury and apoptosis in the liver of aging animals. Antioxidants play an important role in preventing free radical damage associated with age by interfering with the generation of these radicals or by scavenging them. This study were done to know the capability of damage and dysfunction of liver and the ameliorative effects of some antioxidants. Vitamin E [1.56 mg/kg] as lipid soluble antioxidant, vitamin C [1.9 mg/kg] as water soluble antioxidant and zinc sulfate [0.12 mg/kg] as metalloenzyme antioxidant were orally administrated to different groups of 15 months [aged] mice each for 30 consecutive days to improve age-associated liver dysfunction. The present study showed that zinc treatment of aged mice was associated with a significant increase in glycogen granules storage and protein deposition in the hepatocyte, also histological improvement in the liver architecture was noticed as an organized cords, intact hepatocytes cytoplasm without vacuolation and the nucleus were of normal size and blood sinusoids were more or less similar to those of the liver of adult animals, while treated with vitamin E appeared nearly normal with some little vacuoles in the cytoplasm of its cells, and high increase of glycogen and protein contents was observed in the hepatocytes. Vitamin C treatment showed fairly improvement to the general architecture of the liver tissue while the hepatocytes still showed vacuolated cytoplasm, and moderate increase in glycogen and protein content were observed in the hepatic cells. The present study suggested that zinc sulfate is the best antioxidant improve aging liver histology, then, vitamin E and vitamin C. Administration of these drugs where there is no need have bad and dangerous effects