Evaluation of Phyllanthus amarus leaf meal for hepato nephro-protective potentials in broiler chickens

Phyllanthus amarus is an important medicinal plant that is widely distributed in all tropical and subtropical regions of the planet and has the ability to prevent and treat several human and animal diseases but has been associated with pathological defects on various organs on dose-dependent pattern. This study was carried out to evaluate Phyllanthus amarus leaf meal (PALM) for hepato-nephro-protective potentials in broiler chickens. One hundred and twenty (120) day old marshal broiler chickens were used for the experiment that lasted for 56 days. The birds were randomly allotted to five treatments of T0 (control, no PALM), T1 (2.5g/kg PALM), T2 (5.0g/kg PALM), T3 (7.5g/kg PALM) and T4 (10g/kg PALM) in a complete randomized design (CRD). Each treatment was replicated thrice with 8 birds per replicate. The birds were fed with commercial Top® feed and water was given ad-libitum. At the end of the experiment, blood was aseptically collected via venipuncture from a randomly selected bird per replicate to determine the serum biochemical parameters and later was humanely sacrificed for organs harvest. The liver and kidney were carefully dissected out and fixed in buffered 10% formalin for histological study. The biochemical data were subjected to analysis of variance (ANOVA) and statistical difference in means was separated using Duncan’s Multiple Range Test. The histo-pathological slides were interpreted by experts. ALT for T1 – T4 were statistically similar but differed significantly (P<0.05) from T1 . The ALP, however, showed T2 – T4 differing significantly (P<0.05) from T0 and T1 . The uric acid was highest in T4 and differed significantly (P<0.05) from other groups. The urea was highest in quantity in T3 and T4 and as well differed significantly (P<0.05) from other treatments. Therefore, the results showed significant differences (P<0.05) across treatment groups except for AST. PALM gradually increased the ALT, ALP, uric acid and urea in a dose dependent manner across treatments except urea that slightly decreased at T4 . The findings indicated that the PALM had varied time and dose dependent pathological effects on the liver and kidney of treated groups. It can therefore be concluded that PALM enhances serum biochemical parameters and has deleterious effects on the cyto-architecture of liver and kidney. It is recommended that PALM (crude) up to 2.5 g/kg should not be administered protractedly in chickens since it could constitute damage to visceral organs.