Histopathology of Wistar albino rats fed raw and processed Cola rostrata (monkey cola) seed meal

Abstract

Anti-nutritional contents of feedstuffs have deleterious effects on human/animal nutrition. Reducing the anti-nutritional content of these feedstuffs and enhancing their use in feed formulation, requires appropriate processing methods. An experiment was carried out to determine the effect of feeding processed and raw Cola rostrata (monkey cola) seed meal (CRSM) on the histopathology of some organs (liver, kidney, duodenum, jejunum and ileum), of male albino rats. The CRSM was processed using four different methods i.e. boiling only, boiling and fermenting, fermenting only, and toasting. Six experimental diets were formulated with diet T₁ (Control) containing 0% CRSM, while diets T₂, T₃, T₄, T₅ and T₆ contained, boiled, boiled and fermented, fermented, toasted and raw CRSM respectively. 90 male rats (aged, 6 – 7 weeks), were divided into six dietary treatment groups of five animals triplicated in a Completely Randomized Design (CRD). The experiment lasted for 21 days and the data collected were subjected to Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and means separated using the Duncan’s Multiple Range Test (DMRT). The results indicated that rats on T₁ and T₂ recorded no noticeable defects or abnormalities in all the organs observed. However, focal segmental sclerosis in the kidney, hepatocellular necrosis of the liver, hypercellularity and disorganisation of the mucosal glandular tissues were observed in rats from the other treatments (T₆, T₃, T₄, and T₅). It can be concluded that C. rostrata seed boiled for at least 30 minutes can be used as a feed ingredient in animal diets without any deleterious effect on their organs.