Beta-Sitosterol Protects the Kidney Against Acute Nephrotoxicity

By Kyle J. Norton


Kidneys are two bean-shaped organs located below the rib cage, one on each side of your spine with a function to filter out blood and remove waste through urinary secretion.

The kidney also plays a critical in maintaining the levels of fluids in the body, by removing extra fluids to make urine.

Furthermore, the kidney also regulates electrolytes, blood pressure, maintains acid-base balance, produces hormone calcitriol, renin, and erythropoietin.

Kidney diseases are a class of medical conditions associated with reduced function of the kidney, in cases, complete loss of kidney function such as kidney failure.

Believe it or not, in the US, the leading causes of kidney failure and the end stage of chronic kidney diseases are diabetes and high blood pressure.

Nephrotoxicity or acute kidney failure is a condition of toxicity in the kidneys.

The disease is caused by a poisonous effect of prolonged use of certain medications and the accumulation of harmful chemicals.

According to the American physician association, long term use of penicillins, cephalosporins, sulfonamides, thiazide diuretics, furosemide, NSAIDs and rifampicin are associated to increase damage to the kidney.

And people with age over 60 are at increased risk of nephrotoxicity if the above medicines are prescribed for prolonged periods.

According to the information provided by the WHO, each year, around 1.7 million people are thought to die from acute kidney injury. Overall, therefore, an estimated 5–10 million people die annually from kidney disease.

Furthermore, in 2010, an estimated 2.3–7.1 million people with end-stage kidney disease died without access to chronic dialysis.

Beta-Sitosterol is a phytochemical in the class of Phytosterols, belongings to the group of Lipids, found abundantly in avocados, rice bran, wheat germ, corn oils, fennel, peanuts, soybeans, hawthorn, basil, buckwheat. etc.

On finding a potential phytochemical for the prevention and treatment of kidney diseases, researchers elucidated the effects of plant sterol β-sitosterol on acute nephrotoxicity.

In vivo, the male albino Wistar rats were randomly grouped into four:
* Group 1 was vehicle control rats (0.1% carboxymethyl cellulose [CMC]);

* Group 2 was rats treated with N-diethylnitrosamine (DEN) (200 mg/kg body weight [bw] i.p. on the 15th day) and ferric nitrilotriacetate (Fe-NTA) (9 mg/kg BW i.p. on 30th and 32nd days);

* Group 3 was rats that received β-sitosterol (20 mg/kg BW in 0.1% CMC, p.o. for 32 days) 2 weeks prior to the exposure to the nephrotoxins; and

* Group 4 was rats that received β-sitosterol alone.

According to the experimental results that were terminated after the 24 h of the last dosage of Fe-NTA, and all the animals were sacrificed,

* DEN and Fe-NTA treated animals induced the elevated parameters of stress markers, reduced antioxidant and increased lipid peroxidation and inflammatory markers in the kidney.

* However, the β-sitosterol pretreated group restored all altered biochemical parameters back to near normal by upregulating the function of antioxidant enzyme protein Nrf2 expression.

Based on the findings, researchers said, "Administration of β-sitosterol to nephrotoxicity induced rats showed significant positive changes in biochemical parameters, histopathological and immunohistochemical observations, and up-regulation of Nrf2 gene expression".

Taken altogether, beta-Sitosterol may be considered a supplement for the prevention of acute nephrotoxicity, pending to the confirmation of the larger sample size and multicenter human study.

Intake of beta-Sitosterol in the form of supplements should be taken with extreme care to prevent overdose acute liver toxicity.


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Author Biography
Kyle J. Norton (Scholar, Master of Nutrition, All right reserved)
Health article writer and researcher; Over 10.000 articles and research papers have been written and published online, including worldwide health, ezine articles, article base, health blogs, self-growth, best before it's news, the karate GB daily, etc.,.
Named TOP 50 MEDICAL ESSAYS FOR ARTISTS & AUTHORS TO READ by Disilgold.com Named 50 of the best health Tweeters Canada - Huffington Post
Nominated for shorty award over last 4 years
Some articles have been used as references in medical research, such as international journal Pharma and Bioscience, ISSN 0975-6299.

Sources
(1) Nephroprotective effect of β-sitosterol on N-diethylnitrosamine initiated and ferric nitrilotriacetate promoted acute nephrotoxicity in Wistar rats by Sharmila R, Sindhu G, Arockianathan PM. (PubMed)