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Abstract

The present study aimed at determining the effectiveness of Bunium incrassatum acetonic and ethanolic tuber extracts as antioxidant (DPPH assay) and anti-hemolytic agents (hypotonic solution, H2O2 and triton X100 assays) and tubers’ powder as dietary supplement on body weight, on histological (liver, thyroid, testes, and kidney) and biochemical parameters (glycaemia, cholesterol, triglycerides, urea, creatinine, HDL, LDL, AST and ALT). In DPPH assay, acetonic extract (IC50=0.02 mg/ml) exhibited by far, higher scavenging potential, even compared to ethanolic extract (IC50=0.19 mg/ml) and ascorbic acid (IC50=0.25 mg/ml) as reference compound. The same extract showed a very good protective effect against hemolysis induced by H2O2 and hypotonic solutions with 76.43%±3.71 and 77.67%±2.07 mg/mL, respectively and closely followed by quercetin as reference compound. The in vivo results revealed that rats receiving orally 15% of B. incrassatum with diet (BID group) during 15 days of experimentation increased significantly their final body weight (98.88%). Then, a significant rise of glycaemia (+17.92%), HDLc (+25%), AST (+36.78%) and ALT (+56.76%) levels associated to a notable decrease of triglycerides (-29.1 %) and creatinine (-12.74%) were observed compared with control animals. These promising findings support the traditional use of B. incrassatum tubers as functional food for human and farm animals, and suggest that their radical scavenging and anti-hemolytic potentials are may be due to the presence of polyphenolic compounds.