Sub-chronic oral toxicity study in Sprague-Dawley rats with hypoxia mimetic cobalt chloride towards the development of promising neutraceutical for oxygen deprivation

The present study evaluates the toxicity from sub-chronic administration of CoCl2 (12.5 mg cobalt kg−1 BW for 7 days) to male Sprague-Dawley rats in view of the beneficial effects of CoCl2 in animals and for developing efficacious therapeutic regimen in humans. 32 rats weighing 200±25 g were used for all experiments. Blood was collected for hematological and biochemical analysis and various organs were dissected after perfusion of animals under anesthesia for other analyses. Mean feed consumption and feed conversion efficiency values were comparable across all study groups; however, hematological analysis depicted a significant increase in hemoglobin, hematocrit and RBC in the entire cobalt-supplemented groups, which are a component of its beneficial effect. There was a significant increase in monocytes, granulocytes and WBC after 1 and 24 h, which were comparable with control after 7 days. Other biochemical analyses also showed no change with respect to control. Though the metal content increased significantly in liver initially (1 and 24 h) after treatment, it was equivalent to control after 7 days. Moreover, histopathological analysis revealed no evidence of changes that could be attributed to cobalt pretreatment. It is therefore reasonable to conclude that the present study supports further use of the present dose of CoCl2, which was found to be nontoxic.