Araçá (Psidium cattleianum Sabine) ameliorates liver damage and reduces hepatic steatosis in rats fed with a high-fat diet.

Abstract

Bioactive compounds, present in some foods, act enhancing the endogenous antioxidant system and are proposed as an effective strategy in preventing the changes induced by free radicals in some diseases, such as nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). There has been an increase in the number of studies carried out with the aim of finding natural antioxidant compounds present in fruits, mainly the native fruits of Brazil, because they contain a high content of these compounds. Araçá (Psidium cattleianum Sabine) is a fruit that is rich in polyphenols and exhibits strong antioxidant, antiproliferative, and anti-inflammatory activities. Therefore, the present study investigated the effects of araçá flour on oxidative stress, liver injury, and antioxidant defenses in high-fat diet-induced hepatic steatosis in rats. In vitro experiments showed that araçá contains high concentrations of total polyphenols and exhibits strong antioxidant activity with no cytotoxicity. In vivo experiments indicated that the addition of araçá to a high-fat diet inhibited the activities of alanine aminotransferase and aspartate enzymes, reduced macrovesicular steatosis, increased the paraoxonase activity, and increased the concentration of the total and reduced forms of glutathione. Therefore, our findings suggested the hepatoprotective role of araçá against the progression of steatosis.