effects of milk thistle, artichoke and olive extracts in comparison with atorvastatin and gemfibrozil on liver function in broiler chicken

One hundred forty four 10-day old male arbor acres (320±5g) broiler chickswere used to compare the responses in liver function to dietary supplementationof milk thistle (silybum marianum), artichoke (cichorium intybus) and olive(olea europaea) extracts with gemfibrozil and atorvastatin, in broiler chickensfed with a lipogenic diet. birds raised in the standard experimental conditionsand received a pelleted grower diet (control) supplemented with milk thistle (250mg/kg), artichoke (200 mg/kg), olive (150 mg/kg) extracts, atorvastatin (20mg/kg) and gemfibrozil (1800 mg/kg) up to day 42 of age. liver weight andliver fat parentages were 1.62 and 6.04%, respectively, in the birds fed with theun-supplemented basal diet (control) and modified by +0.21 and -2.13, +0.11and -1.21, +0.14 and -1.40, -0.07 and -2.36, +0.07 and -0.38% in the birdsreceived milk thistle, artichoke, olive extracts, gemfibrozil, and atorvastatin,respectively. the milk thistle-added diet elicited a significant reduction in serumactivity of aspartate aminotransferase and alanine aminotransferase at day 35 ofage. dietary olive extract at 150 mg/kg reduced liver fat at day 35 of agecompared with those grown on the basal diet (p < 0.05). the serumconcentration of triglycerides was lower (p < 0.05) in the birds fed with dietsenriched with artichoke (34.86 mg/dl) and olive extract (40.63 mg/dl)compared with those fed with the supplemented control diet at day 35 of age. itwas concluded that milk thistle exerted greater promising hepatoprotectiveeffects compared with other remedies. gemfibrozil exhibited a greaterhepatoprotective and blood lipid-lowering effect than atorvastatin in broilerchicken.