Cardioprotective Effects of Green Tea and Honey on Albino Wistar Rats Exposed to Atrazine

Aim: To evaluate the cardioprotective effect of green tea and honey on the blood levels of creatinine kinase and troponin of albino Wistar rats exposed to atrazine.

Study Design: Experimental study.

Place and Duration of Study: Department of Clinical Chemistry and Department of Anatomy, Rivers State University, Port Harcourt, between August 2024 and December 2024.

Methodology: Thirty (30) male rats weighing between 150-250g were randomly divided into six (6) groups of five rats each. Prior to the study, the rats were allowed to acclimatize for 14 days and were allowed standard feed and water ad libitum. Group I rats served as the negative control, group II rats served as the positive control as they were given oral administration of Atrazine (2.3mg/ml), Group III oral administration of atrazine (2.3mg/ml), low dose green tea (0.23ml), group IV received oral administration of atrazine (2.3mg/ml), high dose green tea (1ml), group V received oral administration of atrazine (2.3mg/ml), honey (1ml) once daily, and group VI received oral administration of atrazine after 15 days of oral administration of honey. After the end of the study the rats were allowed to fast for 24 hours before they were anaesthetized, using chloroform and blood samples were collected via cardiac puncture for the analysis of creatine kinase-muscle/brain (CK-MB), creatine kinase-Brain/Brain (CK-BB), creatine kinase-Muscle/Muscle (CK-MM), Troponin-I and Troponin-II. GraphPad Prism version 10.0 was used to analyze the mean, standard deviation, ANOVA and Tukey multiple comparison test, and p<0.05 was regarded to be statistically significant

Results: The results showed a significant difference in CK-MB (p<0.0001), CK-MM (p<0.0001), CK-BB (p<0.0001), Trop-I (p<0.0001) and Trop-T (p<0.0001) in the treatment groups (group III, IV, V &VI) compared to the positive control group (group II). The multiple comparison test also showed a significant difference (p<0.05) between the mean value of CK-MB, CK-BB, CK-MM, Troponin-I and Troponin-T across the various in-between groups comparisons.

Conclusion: The findings of this study suggest that honey and green tea possesses the potential of ameliorating cardiotoxicity caused by Atrazine. Further related studies are, however, recommended.