Investigating the Cardio-protective Activity of Agaricus bisporus in Wistar Rats Induced with Myocardial Infarction

Myocardial infarction is now recognized as one of the chronic diseases and the leading cause of death across the globe. The use of plants abundant in our environment, especially Agaricus bisporusprovides a cheap alternative to combat this common foe of mankind. Hence, this study was carried out to evaluate the cardio-protective effect of the leaf extract of Agaricus bisporus in isoproterenol-induced myocardial infarction. Fresh sample of Agaricus bisporus were purchased from a market at Asaba, Delta State, Nigeria. The samples were thereafter shredded with a knife and oven-dried at 40oC and pulverized and extracted, using Solvent-solvent (ethanol and water) (7:3) via maceration for 72 hr. The filtrate was evaporated to dryness to obtain the ethanol extract which was used for further bioassay study. The animals were administered with the extract of A. bisporus orally for fourteen consecutive days at a divided dose of 100 mg/kg, 200 mg/kg and 400 mg/kg body weights and thereafter 0.2 ml isoproterenol (ISO) at 150 mg/kg was injected intraperitoneally at an interval of 24 h on the 15th and 16th day. Subsequently, the blood pressures were monitored and blood collected for bioassay studies. Assay of High density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-c), low density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-c), triglyceride (TG) and total cholesterol (TC) levels as well as activities of lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), were carried out with standard assay kit sourced from Randox laboratories Ltd, United Kingdom with maximum adherence to the manufacturer’s instruction. Results showed a significant increase (P<0.05) in high density lipoproteins (HDL) levels and lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) activities with a significant decrease (P>0.05) in low density lipoproteins (LDL) and triglyceride levels in a dose-dependent manner (100<200<400 mg/kg body weight) among the extract treated groups when compared to the untreated control group. Conversely, total cholesterol levels of extract treated groups showed no significant difference when compared with the untreated control group.The findings of this work have shown that extract of Agaricus bisporus could help to mitigate cardiovascular diseases and could be used to produce plant based products to combat myocardial infarction, thereby improving general wellbeing.