Effects of Pistachio Nut Powder on Rat Liver Phosphatidate Phosphohydrolase andSerum Lipids and Lipoproteins Profile

Although the consumption of chemical drugs such as clofibrate and statins reduce serum lipids, they have undesirable side effects. So, at the present time the use of medicinal plants are preferred, because they are cheap, beneficially effective and of low undesirable side effects. The nuts of Anacardiace family have hypolipidemic effects on serum lipid profile by unknown mechanisms.Phosphatidate phosphohydrolase (PAP) is a key regulator enzyme in lipid metabolism. Therefore, the aim of this study is to determine effects of Pistacia khinjuk nut on PAP, serum lipid profile and liver content triglyceride in rats. Four groups of rats (n=6/group) were fed with normal diet (control) or normal diet plus 10% pistachio nut powder for 15 and 60 days. Then, PAP activity, triglyceride, total cholesterol, HDL-cholesterol, LDL- cholesterol, VLDL- cholesterol, and liver content triglyceride were measured. Feeding rats with pistachio nut for 15 days had significant elevated cholesterol in all lipoprotein fractions and reduced liver content triglyceride (P< 0.05). Although, PAP activity reduced approximately 11%, it was not significant in control group (P>0.05). On the other hand, rats fed with pistachio nut for 60 days had no significant differences with control group in all lipoprotein fractions (P>0.05), whereas the liver content triglyceride significantly decreased(P<0.05). In addition, PAP activity also decreased nearly 16% with respect to control group. The data shows that in pistachio nut, there is one or some substances able to elevate cholesterol metabolism. Hence, for understanding the effect of pistachio nut on lipid metabolism, it is necessary to prepare alcohol and water extraction of pistachio nut and examine them. On the other hand, in long time, no significant affection was seen. This may be due to the effect of essential fatty acids of nut, linoleic and linolenic, that can reduce serum lipids. Considering the fact that PAP is involved in the formation of fatty liver and also pistachio nut can result in reduction of liver content triglyceride by decreasing PAP activity in short and long courses, the pistachio nut can be used for the treatment of fatty liver through isolation and purification of effective components of it.