The dissertation is devoted to the study of the structural and functional features of the liver of white rats under the influence of a complex of food additives (monosodium glutamate , sodium nitrite, Ponceau 4R), in the experiment.
In the context of the technogenic world penetration into everyday life, including the food industry, the functional morphology of the liver, its reparative properties, structural changes under the influence of various endo - and exogenous factors are the object of numerous studies, because the liver itself is highly effective a biological barrier to both external and internal pathogenic factors. At the same time, protecting the entire body, the liver experiences a negative impact on its own tissue.
The use of food additives in the product is allowed only if, according to the available data, their use does not pose a danger to the health of the consumer, it is technologically justified and does not mislead the consumer.
The dose of each food additive in the product, as a rule, has certain limitations, which are based on research. The number of names of food additives in one product is increasing. At the same time, the study of the effect of food additives on the body deserves further detailed study, given that in some cases the harmful effects of some additives may be enhanced by the effects of others, even if their permissible doses are not exceeded.
Given the above, the aim of our study was to investigate the structural and functional features of the rat liver under the combined effect of a set of the most common food additives, namely sodium glutamate, sodium nitrite and Ponceau 4R.
With the additional introduction of a complex of food additives into the diet, there is a change in the ratio of the liver weight to the animal's body weight. This indicator decreases until the 4th week of the experiment, then gradually increases, and on the 16th week again shows a negative trend. A change in the color of the organ is also observed, due to the appearance of inclusions of yellow color, these changes become quite pronounced from the 8th week of the experiment, after which the intensity of their manifestations decreases. No noticeable changes in the structural organization of the liver of laboratory animals at the organ level were observed during the experiment.
Under the influence of a complex of food additives, the number of hepatocytes with dystrophic changes in the liver of experimental animals progressively increases (0.45±0.1% in animals of the control group, 11.19±1.18% – by 16 weeks of the experiment). At the same time, in the early stages of the experiment, fatty dystrophy prevailed in hepatocytes, and in the later stages, the relative number of liver cells with the phenomena of hydropic dystrophy increased. Starting from the 4th week of the experiment, hepatocytes with irreversible necrotic changes were found in the liver parenchyma, and focal inflammatory lymphoplasmacytic infiltrates formed around them.
Additional introduction of a complex of food additives into the diet of animals led to an increase in the diameter of sinusoidal capillaries to 8.11±0.59 μm in the 8th week of the experiment, after which there was a tendency to stabilize this indicator. During the first 4 weeks of the experiment, an increase in the number of sinusoidal cells was observed (by 28% compared to the control), after which the number of the latter progressively decreased and by the end of the experiment this indicator was 18% less than the initial value. At the same time, the ratio between CD68+ and CD3+ cells in sinusoids did not change significantly during the experiment.
It has been established that the additional introduction of a complex of food additives into the diet leads to a progressive increase in the relative amount of connective tissue in the liver of experimental animals up to 13.62±1.55% over the 16 weeks of the experiment. This indicator increases due to the increase in the size of periportal connective tissue formations.
In the periportal connective tissue, during the first four weeks, a decrease in the relative number of fibroblastic cells (up to 40 %) is observed, while the relative number of cells of haematogenous origin increases, after which the relative number of fibroblasts progressively increases and amounts to 58 % by the end of the experiment, and the relative number of cells of haematogenous origin decreases accordingly. Among the cellular elements of hematogenous origin, CD3+ cells predominate in the early stages of the experiment, and CD68+ cells in the later stages.
