Mburu, Stephen Ngigi2025-08-292025-08-292025-03https://ir-library.ku.ac.ke/handle/123456789/31321Research Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement for the Award of the Degree of Master of Science in Medical Laboratory Science (Clinical Chemistry Option) in the School Of Health Sciences of Kenyatta University March, 2025 Supervisors; 1.John K. Mwonjoria 2. Mathew Piero NgugiCardio protection is a mechanism that serve to protect the heart and its vessels from injury, diseases or malfunction. In Kenya, plant material extracts have been applied as a remedy in diseases such as, hepatitis, malaria etc. Nonetheless, use of these traditional remedies gathers a compendium of risks to consumers ascribed to scantiness of information on safety and inclusive of their antihyperlipidemic ability. Application 10% methanol and normal saline was used to reconstitute the materials. Mature Albino Wistar rats three months old were fed with HCHF diet (10% egg York (5.6g/bw),10% lard (5.6g/bw),0.2% cholic acid (0.112g/bw) and 0.59% propylthiouracil (0.28g/bw), for 28 days. Onset of 28th day, the rats were euthanized and bioassays done. Body weights and organ weights were recorded. For cardiotonic studies,10 New Zealand male rabbits were used. They were injected with 1000 units of heparin to avoid clot formation. Chest was opened through cardiac thoracotomy and heart placed in a dish containing Tyrode solution. This was followed by Langerdorff method using a kymograph for ionotropic and chronotropic effects. In toxicity studies, male mice of age 6-7 weeks were given oral doses of plant extract for 28 days of the experiment. On 29th day of the experiment, animals were sacrificed through cardiac puncture and blood sample collected for biochemical assays. Mice’s were ruminated with rodent pellets and water adlipitum. OECD 407 precepts were followed when conducting toxicity studies. One way ANOVA was used in data analysis. This was followed by Tukey as post hoc and statistical significance at P<0. 05.Both plant extracts exhibited positive ionotropic and negative chronotropic effects. R. prinoides extracts had significant reduction on total percent changes of the heart rate. Significance reduction on low density lipoproteins and total cholesterol was exhibited by both plant extracts, following a high cholesterol high fat diet (HCHF). Total body weights were significantly reduced. Extracts of S. incanum showed presence of saponins, alkaloids, glycosides, flavonoids, terpenoids, steroids and phenolics. Extracts of R. prinoides displayed presence of phenolics, glycosides, terpenoids, alkaloids steroids and saponins. Further investigation should be done to quantify the number of glycosides present in both plant extractsenThesis