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ABSTRACT
Food is important to life and the continuous exposure to food throughout an individual’s lifetime renders diet the most important environmental factor challenging the biological system. The economic and nutritional value of palm oil has made its utilization to be on the increase especially in Nigeria, thereby making it expensive, hence the temptation to adulterate it by bulk buyers with the wrong assertion of retaining the quality. This study was therefore undertaken to evaluate the effect of adulterated palm oil on the concentrations of blood serum parameters of albino rats to include lymphocyte, monocyte, granulocyte and white blood cell concentration. More specifically, to determine the level of alteration caused by exposure to Sudan azo dyes (Sudan III and Sudan IV). Forty male albino rats divided into eight groups of six rats each were used for this investigation for fourteen (14) days, treated with fresh palm oil and adulterated palm oil with Sudan dyes. At the end of the experiment, the animals were sacrificed, blood samples were collected for biochemical analysis. Biochemical indices of blood serum parameters were determined. The concentrations of the serum parameters of the group exposed to Sudan III and Sudan IV azo dye showed no significant increase (p < 0.05) when compared with group 1 (control) and 2 (unadulterated palm oil). These results suggest that exposure to these dyes did not lead to statistically significant changes in serum parameters when compared to the untreated control group. The lack of significant differences in these parameters in the different groups, despite the presence of administration of these dyes, may indicate that the dyes did not have a pronounced effect on mitigating the impact of blood cell lysis due to the free radicals released by these dyes in this study. It is possible that the dosage or duration of treatment was not sufficient to observe a significant alteration in serum parameters in these groups. Therefore, further investigation needs to be conducted in order to determine the mitigating effects of Sudan dyes on serum parameters.
