Preventive Effects of Pueraria on Alcoholic Liver Injury in Rats

Objective To study the preventive effects of Pueraria on the alcoholic liver injury in rats. Methods Alcoholic liver injury model in rats was duplicated by feeding Lieber-Decarli feed. 32 SD rats were randomly divided into normal group, control group, model group and Pueraria group. Administration began from 4 weeks modeling and samples were taken at the end of 8th week. The followings were detected: the liver pathology (HE staining and Red oil staining); the content of liver triglyceride (TG); the activity of serum alanine aminotransferase (ALT), aspartate aminotransferase (AST) and liver γ-glutamyltransferase (γ-GT); the activity of liver superoxide dismutase (SOD), nitric oxide synthase (NOS), the content of liver maleic dialdehyde (MDA) and serum Fe2+. Results In the experiment, there were serious hepatic steatosis and inflammation in model group. Activity of serum ATL, AST and liver γ-GT and content of liver TG of the model group were significantly increased compared with the normal group and the control group. There were significant increases in MDA, NOS and Fe2+and significant decrease in SOD. Pueraria can obviously alleviate hepatic steatosis and inflammation in model group. Pueraria can significantly decrease serum ALT, AST, NOS activity, liver γ-GT activity and liver TG, MDA content. And it can also increase liver SOD activity. Conclusion Pueraria has good experimentally preventive effect on the alcoholic liver injury.