Effects of Carica Papaya Juice on Red Cell Indices of Anaemic Sprague-Dawley Rats

Plant-based remedies have gained significant attention as alternative treatments for various health conditions. While the therapeutic potential of Carica papaya (Pawpaw) juice is well-documented, its impact on red cell indices in anaemia remains an area of active research. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of Carica papaya on red cell indices of anaemic Sprague-dawley rats. In this study, 55 male Sprague-dawley rats were purchased and acclimatized for 2 weeks. At the end of acclimatization, 5 rats were separated to form the control group. The rest of the rats were induced with anaemia using phenylhydrazine hydrochloride at 20mg/kg dosage, once daily for 3 consecutive days. On the fourth day, 5 rats were randomly sacrificed to confirm anaemia serving as the baseline results for other results comparison. The anaemia induced rats were then divided into 3 other groups; distilled water, vitamin B complex and folic acid, and Carica papaya juice. Subsequently, each group (aside from the control) were administered their respective treatments at 1ml/100g dosage, orally and once daily. Weekly, 5 rats were sacrificed from each group for haematological analyses for 3 consecutive weeks. Automated haematology analyzer (dymimd 3-part analyzer) was used to analyze the following red cell indices parameters; mean cell volume (MCV), mean cell haemoglobin (MCH), mean cell haemoglobin concentration (MCHC), red cell distribution width-standard deviation (RDW-SD), and red cell distribution width-coefficient of variation (RDW-CV). Quantitative data were analyzed using GraphPad Prism version 10.0 and results reported as mean ± SEM. A one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was performed to assess group differences and significant data set was set at p0.05). On the third week, Carica papaya juice demonstrated moderate effects on RDW-SD and RDW-CV compared to control (p