The effect of carvacrol on reducing bacterial translocation, liver and intestinal damage in obstructive jaundice model in rats

Background ve Aim: Obstructive jaundice is a decrease or complete inhibition of bile flow to the intestine secondary to an obstruction occurring in the biliary tract, resulting in increased level of substances that are excreted from the blood by bile. These substances accumulating in the body affect many systems and cause pathological changes. There are studies that shows carvacrol has antibacterial, antifungal, antioxidant, antiallergic, hepatoprotective and analgesic effects. In these studies, carvacrol has been shown to successfully prevent bacterial translocation and decrease morbidity and mortality. In this study, obstructive jaundice was created in rats and it was aimed to investigate the effects of carvacrol on liver and intestinal damage and inhibition of bacterial translocation. Materials and methods: In the study, 36 piece of Wistar Albino rats (weight 200-250 g) were used. Rats were randomly divided into six equal groups as control group (group1, n = 6), control + carvacrol group (group2, n = 6), control + dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) group (group3, n = 6), obstructive jaundice (TS) group (group4, n = 6 ), TS + DMSO group (group5, n = 6) and TS + carvacrol treatment group (group6, n = 6). In Group2 and 6, DMSO and carvacrol were given, in Group3 and 5, only carvacrol was given to rats. Carvacrol and DMSO injections applied 0,2 ml intraperitoneally for 3 days. On the third postoperative day, subjects were sacrificed, total antioxidant capacity (TAS), total oxidant capacity (TOS), oxidative stress index (OSI), aspartate aminotransferase (AST), alanine aminotransferase (ALT), gamma glutamyl transferase (GGT), lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), total protein (TP), albumin (Alb), total bilirubin (T.bil), direct bilirubin (D.bil), alkaline phosphatase (ALP) and malondialdehyde (MDA) values, blood culture, liver, spleen, mesenteric lymph node (MLN) and ileum tissue cultures, liver and intestinal histopathology were studied. Results: Evaluation of the growths in blood, ileum, MLN, liver and spleen tissue cultures in TS and TS + carvacrol groups shows that there was a significant increase (p <0.005) compared to the control group. We did not find that carvacrol provides a statistically significant improvement in the TS models of rats in terms of biochemical parameters. Histopathological examinations of the rats that have liver damage showed that carvacrol had no effect on liver damage in rats with TS. Conclusions: The study shows that negative effects of obstructive jaundice on bacterial translocation and hepatocytes causes liver injury. Although carvacrol, which is an inexpensive and easily available substance and normally has a strong antioxidant effect, there were no positive effects on bacterial translocation after the creating of obstruction jaundice. It also failed to provide improvements at the pathological findings of obstructive jaundice. No significant effect was found on biochemical parameters. Keywords: Bacterial translocation, liver damage, carvacrol, obstructive jaundice