ABSTRACT
The present study was conducted to study the effect of feeding ginseng and/or ginger [=zingiber] on hepatic and cardiac enzymes activity as well as the hepatic antioxidant function in rats fed high fat diet. Fifty adult male aLbino rats were used. They were divided equally to the following five groups: group [l]= control, fed ordinary rat chow; group II, fed high fat diet; group Ill, fed high fat diet plus ginseng [100mg/kg/day]; group IV, fed high fat diet plus ginger [34mg/kg/day] and group V. fed high fat diet plus combination of both herbs in the same doses. These diets were fed for 16 weeks and the body weights were measured weekly. After this period the blood, livers and hearts were taken to asses the enzymatic activity in sera and tissues, antioxidant activity as well as serum total cholesterol and triglycerides. The body weight, liver and heart weights were increased significantly with the high fat diet compared to control and decreased significantly with addition of either ginseng or zingiber or combination of both compared to rats fed high fat diet [group II]. Serum total cholesterol and triglycerides showed significant elevations with the high fat diet and decreased significantly with addition of ginseng and/or zingiber. Activities of alkaline phosphatase [AP], aspartate aminotransferase [AST] and alanine aminotransferase [ALT] were significantly increased in group II compared to control and significantly decreased in groups III, IV and V compared to group Il In the liver the activities of AST, ALT and AP showed significant reduction in group II and significantly elevated in the last three groups compared to group II. However in the heart the AST and ALT showed insignificant changes between all groups. The hepatic cytosolic and mitochondrial antioxidant enzymes: reduced glutathion [GSH], superoxide dismutase [SOD] and glutathion peroxidase [GPX] showed significant reduction with the high fat diet and showed significant elevation with addition of ginseng and/or zingiber. We concluded that high fat diet resulted in significant elevation of enzymes activity in the blood with significant reduction of these enzymes in the liver tissues. Also the high fat diet led to inhibition of the hepatic antioxidant enzymes. On the other hand addition of ginseng and/or zingiber to the high fat diet improved all figures toward normal as well as improving of antioxidant function of the rat's liver. In addition we confirmed that ginseng and zingiber and their combination have a powerful hypolipidaemic effect