Asma Jabeen, Umar Ali Khan, Ghulam Mustafa Lodhi.
Effects of alpha-tocopherol on lipid profile and nerve conduction velocity in obese Sprague Dawley rats.
Isra Med J Jan ;3(3):89-93.

Objectives: To study the effects of alpha-tocopherol in high fat diet induced obese Sprague Dawley rats on lipid profile including serum total cholesterol, triglycerides, low density lipoproteins, high density lipoproteins and the sciatic nerve conduction velocity. Methods: The study was a randomized control trial conducted from December 2008 to November 2009. A total of ninety adult male Sprague Dawley rats were divided into three groups, each group having thirty rats. One group of rats was taken as control with normal diet while other two groups were given high fat diet (HFD) for the whole study period i.e. ten weeks. One of the HFD group was given alpha-tocopherol supplementation along with high fat diet for last four weeks. Lipid profile was done after intracardiac blood sampling by total enzymatic colorimetric method. Conduction velocity of sciatic nerve was determined with the help of Power lab data acquisition system. Results: The two groups with HFD showed more than 60% increase in weight at the end of study as compared to control group. HFD group showed significantly higher lipid profile and decreased sciatic nerve conduction velocity when compared with control. The group that was given alpha-tocopherol showed improvement in lipid profile (p-value < 0.001) and increased sciatic nerve conduction velocity (p-value < 0.001) after four weeks when compared with the group that was given HFD without any supplementation. Conclusions: Alpha-tocopherol is effective for improving the deranged lipid levels and sciatic nerve conduction velocity in obesity.

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