Vitamin A ameliorates the genotoxicity in mice of aflatoxin B1-containing Aspergillus flavus infested food.

Young weaning Swiss albino mice were orally administered crude aflatoxin B1 in a dose mimicking human exposure condition, i.e. at 0.05 micrograms/kg body weight/day for 14 weeks. Vitamin A (retinol) was orally administered along with the toxin in double (132 IU/kg body wt/day) the human equivalent therapeutic dose. The results suggested that vitamin A minimised the frequency of toxin-induced clastogeny in both mitotic and meiotic chromosomes. The decreases in sperm count as well as increases in abnormality in the gross morphology of the sperm-head, as observed upon toxin treatment, was ameliorated by the vitamin A.