Effects of Artemisia dracunculus Essential Oil on Blood Lipid Profiles in Hyperlipidemic Rat

Hyperlipidemia and elevated serum total cholesterol is one of the greatest risk factors contributing to prevalence and severity of cardiovascular complications like coronary heart diseases, including atherosclerosis and death. To clarify the anti-hyperlipidemic effect of Artemisia dracunculus essential oil (ADEO), the present experimental study was designed.
The EOAD was extracted by clevenger apparatus using hydrodistillation. Hyperlipidemia was induced by giving high cholesterol (2%) diet in standard rat chow diet for twenty-one days. Animals were randomly divided into 6 groups (there were 6 rats in each groups). The groups of rats selected for the study were treated orally with lovastatin (10 mg/kg) and EOAD (15–60 mg/kg) daily for the two weeks.
EOAD did not show significant difference in serum cholesterol (TC) and triglycerides (TG), but these values were lowered significantly (P The present work indicated that essential oil of A. dracunculus could not prevent dyslipidemia that occurred in rats following feeding of high cholesterol diet in both dose-and time-dependent manners. However, it was affected HDL level and athrogenic index. Further studies are needed to characterize the effects of A. dracunculus in the prevention and treatment of atherosclerosis.