Avaliação das toxicidades do suco do fruto de Plinia cauliflora em ratos Wistar

Abstract

Plants have always been an essential item for human life, being used as raw material, food, and medicine alike. Even today, with all the developments in medicine, plants are still a fundamental source of solutions. Given the rise on consciousness about ultra-processed foods and their negative effects on health, natural products, capable of offering interesting nutritional values, are being well valued by the population, and scientists see on theses aliments possible nutraceuticals. Plinia cauliflora is a plant endemic of the Brazilian Atlantic Forest, and produces on its trunks a small, purple berry known as jabuticaba. This fruit is very appreciated for its sweet pulp and it is mostly consumed in natura, due to its high perishability, but it is also consumed in jams, juices, and liquors. Moreover, jabuticaba has been compared to blueberries due to its phenolic compound levels, especially anthocyanins. Although a few in vivo studies have been realized, mostly on rodents, not much attention was directed to possible toxic effects of the high consumption of this fruit. Therefore, this experiment focused on evaluating the oral toxicity of jabuticaba’s concentrated juice (CJJ) on an acute and a repeated dose 28-day scenario, following the OECD 423 and 407 guidelines, respectively. The juice was made with no addition of water, by blending the fruits into a must and then strain it to collect the concentrated juice. Considering the acute oral toxicity test, 6 male rats received each 5000 mg/kg of CJJ via gavage, and 6 rats received the vehicle (distilled water) as placebo. During the 14 days of observation, no physical signs of toxicity were found, and no weight difference was identified between the groups. Hematological and biochemical tests showed no statistical differences between the groups, except on total cholesterol levels, which increased on treatment group, although the control group had a remarkably low total cholesterol level. On the repeated dose 28-day test, four groups of females and four groups of males were established and received their respective treatments via gavage. The groups were: control, which received distilled water, CJJ 500 mg/kg, CJJ 1000 mg/kg, and CJJ 2000 mg/kg. No signs of toxicity were seen during the experiment, and macroscopical evaluation of organs post-euthanasia showed no signs of toxicity as well. Mean body weight stayed the same between groups, and mean organs weight had slight differences on females. Hematological and biochemical parameters showed no statistical difference on males, except glucose levels. On females, AST levels decreased on CJJ 2000 mg/kg compared to the control group and total protein and glucose levels increased on CJJ 2000 mg/kg compared to the control group. In conclusion, CJJ has showed no actual signs of toxicity on the tested doses and, according to everything that was evaluated on this experiment, can be considered safe to consume.