Evaluation of the effect of bezafibrate on the liver of albino rats fed by fatty diet

ABSTRACT

Twenty five male albino rats of 150-200 gm B.W. were used in this study, trying to detect the histological effects of feeding with high caloric fatty diets on the liver, and to evaluate the usage of bezafibrate [as an antihyperlipidemic drug] on the livers of animals bred on such fatty diets. Five animals served as a control group where they were bred all over the experiment on a standard balanced diet. Twenty rats were bred for 7 weeks on a high caloric fatty diet formed of cream extra-added to full cream milk and bread. After 4 weeks of feeding with the prepared fatty diet, the hepatocytes of the rats bred on such a diet appeared overloaded with PAS +ve glycogen granules resulting in the ballooning and vacuolation of these cells, specially in the periphery of the hepatic lobules. This might be due to the increased blood level of the glycerol fraction of the absorbed fat which was handled and utilized in the same way as carbohydrates. One week treatment of the rats, receiving a high fatty diet, with bezafibrate resulted in the marked depletion of the hepatocytes from their cytoplasmic content of the PAS +ve glycogen granules with no vacuolation. After 2 and 3 weeks of treatment of the fed animals with bezafibrate, a progressive moderate revacuolation and reappearance of glycogen was observed. The effect of the drug and the noticed hepatocytic changes might be related to the changes of the blood glucose level caused by it, and mentioned by some authors