Morphological Effects of Long Term Consumption of Energy Drink on the Kidney of Adult Wistar Rats

Morphological effects of long term consumption of energy drink commonly use as flavored beverage drinks on the kidney of adult wistar rats was carefully studied. The rats of both sexes (N = 20), with average weight of 200g were randomly assigned into treated(n1=10) and control (n2=10) groups. The rats in the treated group received energy drink on a daily basis for 10hrs and 14hrs of distilled water liberally in thirty days, while the control group received equal amount of distilled water daily for thirty days. The growers mash feeds was obtained from Edo Feeds and Flour Mill Limited, Ewu, Edo state, Nigeria and the rats were given feeds liberally. The rats were sacrificed by cervical dislocation on the thirty-first days of the experiment; the kidneys were carefully dissected out, weighed and quickly fixed in 10% formal saline for further histological study. The findings indicated that there was a significant (p < 0.05) increase in left kidney weight (g) of the treated group as compared to the control group. The histological findings revealed that the treated group showed some level of distortion and disruption of the cytoarchitecture of the renal cortical structures. The treated renal cortical structures was associated with an enlarged Bowman's space, distortion of the glomerular capsule, diffuse glomerulonephritis, and some marked signs of tubular distortion and necrosis as compared to the control group. Long term consumption of energy drink may therefore have an adverse effect on the cytoarchitecture and functions of the kidney of adult wistar rats. It was thereforerecommended that further studies aimed at corroborating these observations be carried out.

Key Words: Morphology effects, Energy drink, Kidney, Wistar rats