Original Article Imbalanced Diet Deficient in Calcium and Vitamin D- Induced Juvenile Osteopenia in Rats; the Potential Therapeutic Effect of Egyptian Moghat Roots Water Extract (Glossostemon bruguieri)

This study aimed to explore and validate a new juvenile osteopenic (JO) rat model then examine the efficacy of moghat (Glossostemon bruguieri) as an alternative reversal therapy for JO. Phytochemical screening analysis showed that moghat contains 5.8 % alkaloids, 1.5% flavonoids and 13.2 % total phenols. Juvenile osteopenia was induced in 15 days old Sprague-Dawley female rats by feeding them free Ca and vitamin D synthetic diet for 21 days. Osteopenic rats were either treated with moghat (0.8 g dried plant tissue/Kg body weight, orally), or with a reference nutritional supplements of calcium chloride (14 mg Ca/Kg) and vitamin D3 (7 IU/ Kg), for extra 21 days. Both untreated and treated groups were compared to a control group that fed a regular pelleted food. Our results showed that osteopenic rats lost normal bone tissue architecture, 30 % of body mass, 54 % of bone mass and finally 93 % of bone calcium mass. Furthermore, these rats showed a markedly increase in serum phosphate, PTH, alkaline phosphatase, aspartate transaminase activities and creatinine level as compared to the control group. Moghat administration was successfully reversed osteopenia by normalizing body and bone masses to the reference ranges, increased the bone calcium mass by 17 fold without any detectable side effects on liver and kidney physiological performance. Therefore, moghat could be considered as potent safe –JO- reversal extract