The Effects of Excess Consumption of Aqueous Seed Extract of Piper Guineense on the Duodenum of Adult Female Albino Rats

Abstract

The plant Piper guineense is indeed of great medicinal and culinary value. This study was carried out to ascertain the effect of excess consumption of aqueous seed extract of Piper guineense on the duodenum of adult female wistar rats. A group of 20 animals of 4 groups each were used to carry out this study. Group 1 served as control group, group 2, 3 and 4 served as experimental groups each receiving 1000mg/kg, 1500mg/kg and 2000mg/kg body weight of extracts respectively. The animals were administered this experimental product for a period of 28 days after which, they were sacrificed for organ harvesting and tissue processing. The results obtained revealed that there was a dose-dependent fragmentation of the intestinal epithelia lining as well as reduction in size of wall. This therefore suggests that Piper guineense can cause damages to the duodenum which can be irreparable whenever it is excessively consumed and so an excessive consumption should be warned against.

Keywords: Duodenum, Epithelia, Fragmentation, Piper guineense.