Effect of quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa) on Lipid Profile in Rats Exposed to twoSynthetic Food colors

Increasing scientific evidence suggests potential adverse effects on children’s health from synthetic chemicals used as food additives. Synthetic food colors are food additives are widely used as colorants in food. This study was conducted to investigate the effectiveness of quinoa powder as nutraceuticals on lipids profile for young experimental rats exposed to chronic administration of synthetic food colores (azo dyes),chocolate brown (CH) or sunset yellow (SY). Seventy healthy young male albino rats "Sprague Dawley" strain weighing (90 ± 10g), were used and divided randomly into two main groups; the first main group (n=10 rats) was kept as (-ve) control group and fed on basal diet. The second main group (n =60 rats) were divided into 6 sub-groups (equal groups) and fed on basal diet as follow: The first three subgroups were fed on chocolate brown oral dose (0.3 mg/kg b.wt.) one was kept as a (+ve) control group, while the other two subgroups were fed on quinoa as powder mixed with the basal diet (5%, 10% respectively) as replacement from starch. The other three subgroups were fed on SY oral dose (2.5 mg/kg b.wt.) one was kept as a(+ve) control group, while the other two subgroups were fed quinoa as powder mixed with the basal diet (5%,10%respectively) as replacement from starch. At the end of the experiment (56 days), feed intake (FI), body weight gains (BWG%), feed efficiency ratio (FER)were finally calculated. Rats were sacrificed and relative weights of livers, kidneys, hearts, spleens were calculated, blood samples were collected for biochemical analysis: T.C, T.G, LDL-C,VLDL-C and HDL-C. Moreover, histopathological changes of hearts were examined. The results indicated that chronic administration of synthetic food colors CH or SY recorded significant changes for all above biochemical parameters. While the treatment with quinoa powder revealed significant improvement in all of them. Histopathological examination supported these findings. It could be concluded that quinoa was effective in treatment dysfunction induced by azo dyes. This effect may be due to high content of phenolic compounds in quinoa.