Assessment of toxicity of formalin use as food preservative evidenced by cytotoxic and genotoxic effects in mice: An in vivo study
Abstract
The present study was conducted to find out the deleterious effects of formalin by studying cytogenetical parameters, namely chromosome aberration (CA), mitotic indices (MI) and sperm head anomaly (SHA) in mice. Healthy mice weighing between 20-25 gms were fed with formalin at a dose 0.042mg/kg body weight to find out whether there is any toxicity induced by this chemical. Experiments were carried out at three different fixation intervals, namely 7 Days (7D), 14 Days (14D) and 21 Days (21D), maintaining suitable controls. The investigation reveals that feeding of formalin induced geno-toxicity and cyto-toxicity. This produced greater amount of CA and MI along with general increase in the SHA. Thus the increased level of geno-toxicity and cyto-toxicity could be attributed to chronic feeding of the chemical. Although our present investigation is an initial attempt to test the toxic effects of formalin, hopefully it will open up new avenues to solve critical issues yet to be discovered.
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