EFFECT OF GARLIC ADMINISTRATION ON RAT HEART MITOCHONDRIAL ENZYMES AFTER NOISE STRESS EXPOSURE

Background: Noise has been recognized as one of the risk factors for cardiovascular diseases. Garlic is one of the oldest medications used in human culture. Garlic is used in herbal medicine for thousands of years and also as one of the main food ingredient. The present study was aimed to investigate the cardioprotective effect of garlic after noise exposure in Wistar albino rats.

Methods: Animals were exposed to 1 day, 15 days and 30 days of noise stress exposure. The myocardial activity was evaluated by estimating the heart mitochondrial enzymes like malate dehydrogenase, isocitrate dehydrogenase, alpha ketoglutarate dehydrogenase, NADH dehydrogenase and cytochrome C oxidase. Garlic was administered to the animals at the dosage of 125 mg/kg b.w.)

Conclusion: The result indicated that noise exposure affects the mitochondrial performance in the myocardium and that long-term consumption of garlic is beneficial. As garlic is already under human consumption, dietary supplementation of garlic for prolonged period may be beneficial as one could not avoid noise in the modern way of living.  Results: Exposure to 1 day, 15 days and 30 days of noise stress has significantly decreased the all the enzymic activities studied when compared with control. Supplementation of garlic (125 mg/kg b.w.) to 1 day noise stress exposed and 15 days noise stress exposed animals could not produce any significant change and it was similar to that of untreated noise exposed animals and markedly showed a decrease in all the enzyme activity from controls. However, in 30 days aqueous garlic homogenate supplementation has significantly increased all the enzyme activities from the 30 days stress exposed group but its enzymic activity still showed a marked decrease from the control animals.