Malaria is a serious problem of public health, especially in Amazon region. However, factors such as drug resistence, difficult access and toxicity of traditional drugs reduce the effectiveness of treatment. Thus, Amazon population uselly uses natural resources, such as Brazil nuts, to improve the clinical symptoms of malaria. However, there is no scientific evidence of the effect of this fruit in malaria. So, this study evaluated the effect of pretreatment with Brazil nuts in BALB/c mice infected with Plasmodium berghei by analysing the following parameters: survival to death of all individuals, parasitemia and weight of the animals (in the 3rd, 7th, 10th, 16th and 18th day post-inoculation of the parasite), and, at the 10th of infection, complete hemogram, liver and spleen weight and analysis of hepatic aspartate aminotransferase (AST), alanine aminotransferase (ALT) and ɣ-glutamyltransferase (GGT). Kolmogorov-Smirnov test was used to evaluate normality, followed by analysis of variance (ANOVA) one-way test or Student t test, followed by Tukeypost hoc test. Monitoring of parasitized animals showed a mean survival of 13.9 days, loss of weight, enlarged organs, and changes of both the hemogram (decrease in hematocrit, hemoglobin, red blood cells and platelets and increased of total eukocytes) as hepatic enzymes (increased AST and ALT and decreased GGT). Interestingly, pretreatment with the fruit of 11 days show a significant protection of animals survival (light increase), levels of parasitemia and total leukocytes (decreased), weight of the animal and weight of the spleen (maintenance for a longer time) and ALT and GGT (increase). Thus, these data supports the use of B. excelsa as a nutritional adjuvant on the treatment against the infection caused by Plasmodium.
|
