This study was designed to examine the hepatoprotective effects of Borage seed oil rich in Gamma Linolenic acid (GLA) against hyperlipidemic diet-induced liver damage in the male golden Syrian hamster. In this experiment a total of 60 animals of male hamsters were used. This experiment was carried out in 2 periods. The first period lasted 4 weeks, in which hamsters were segregated into 4 groups. S1 served as control (given a commercial rodent diet only). Other groups, S2, S3 and S4 were fed with a diet containing of %80 commercial rodent diet + 20% fats (Hyperlipidemic Diet). The second period lasted 4 weeks, in which S2 only that continued fed with hyperlipidemic diet. S4 was orally gavaged with borage oil at 2 g/kg of the body weight daily. Hyperlipidemic diet intake caused lipid accumulation in hepatocytes and significantly (P<0.05) increased the activities of ALT, AST, ALP, LDH, GGT and CK enzymes in each of the S2, S3 and S4 groups at the end of the first period. These negative effects were removed only in S4 by the use of borage oil.

The experiment was applied on /45/ healthy male of golden Syrian hamsters, were divided into three groups as follows: Control group(C), High Fat-High Cholesterol group(HF-HC) and Borage Oil group (BO). All groups had laboratorial diet freely during/15/ days(first period), after that each of HF-HC and BO groups took diet consisting of 80% laboratorial diet+ 20% fats(13.5% sheep fat+6.5% coconut oil) for /4/ weeks(second period). The treatment of BO group changed after second period and hamsters had laboratorial diet and dosed borage oil 2g/kg of the body weight daily for /4/ weeks(third period). The results showed a significant increase(p=0.0000) of the total cholesterol(TC), low density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) and triglycerides(TG) concentrations approximately(163%, 224%, 232%) respectively in each of HF-HC and BO groups in the second period in comparison with first period. Our results showed, in third period, a dramatic significant decrease(P=0.0000) in the TC, LDL-C and TG concentrations approximately (56%, 69%, 40%) respectively in BO group in comparison with the same group of second period.