Effect of Dietary Ingestion of Ca and Mg on Cd and PbCo-induced Liver Damage in Rats

This study was designed to determine the hepatoprotective effect of the combined administration of
calcium (Ca) and magnesium (Mg) on cadmium (Cd) and lead (Pb) co-intoxicated rats. Wistar rats
were obtained from the animal House of Pharmacology Department, University of Jos, allowed to
acclimatized for seven days and then divided into five groups of four rats per group in metabolic
cages. Group one was fed with tap water only, while group two to five were fed with the combination
of 0.327 mg/L Pb and 0.079 mg/L Cd concurrently with graded concentrations of Mg and Ca. Their
food was mashed with the same water meant for each group. All the groups fed and freely drank from
the water for a period of fourteen (14) days. At the termination of the experiments, the rats were
humanely sacrificed under anaesthesia, sample of blood was obtained from each rat by decapitation.
Serum was obtained from clotted blood by centrifugation and kept frozen until required for the
measurement of liver biomarkers, while the liver was identified and fixed in 10% formal saline for
histopathological studies. The animal House of Pharmacology Department, Anatomy and
Biochemistry laboratories, University of Jos, Nigeria, were used for treatments, histochemical and
biochemical analyses respectively. Results showed that liver biomarkers in serum decreased as the
concentrations of Ca and Mg were elevated. There was no significant difference (p>0.05) in the liver
biomarkers concentrations of all the groups as compared with control. The histochemistry show that
there was mild damage to the liver integrity at the lower concentrations of Ca and Mg but as their
concentrations were elevated, there was no significant difference between the liver integrity of control
and the test groups. This suggests that as the concentrations of Ca and Mg were elevated, so also
the mitigation effect on the hepatotoxicities induced by Cd and Pb in the rats was increased.