Background: Hypolipidemic activity of gugulipid has been widely described in traditional literature.
Objective: This study was done to evaluate hypolipidemic activity of guggul and atorvaststin monotherapy in comparison to their combination in rabbits.
Materials and methods: Male New Zealand White rabbits (body weight 1.3-1.8 kg and age 8-10 weeks) were made hyperlipidemic by feeding cholesterol (0.5 g/kg) for three weeks and randomly divided into a control and three treatment groups receiving: atorvastatin (3.7 mg/kg), guggul (3.5 mg/kg) and their combination (same dose) for the next three weeks. Body weight measurements, estimation of serum lipid profile were done at the beginning, after three and six weeks, respectively. Histopathological examination of liver, heart and aorta was done after six weeks. Statistical analysis was done with SPSS version 16.0 using one-way and repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) followed by post-hoc multiple comparison test with two tailed P value < 0.05 as significant.
Results: All treated groups had significant reduction in cholesterol, triglyceride, low-density lipoprotein (LDL) and very low-density lipoprotein (VLDL) in comparison to pre-treatment values and control group, and had significant increase in high-density lipoprotein (HDL) in comparison to pre-treatment values.
Conclusion: Combination of atorvastatin and guggul was comparable to their monotherapies in improving lipid profile.
Keywords: atorvastatin; cholesterol; guggul; hyperlipidemia; lipid profile; rabbits.