Pretreatment with tualang honey improves brain antioxidant/oxidant status of rats exposed to normobaric hypoxia

Background: Tualang honey has been shown to reduce oxidative stress in various animal models. Objective: This study aims to investigate the responses of antioxidant defenses to normobaric hypoxia and the effects of Tualang honey on brain oxidant/antioxidant status of adult male rats. Methods: The rats were divided into four groups (n = 12 per group); i) sucrose non-hypoxia, ii) sucrose with hypoxia, iii) honey non-hypoxia, iv) honey with hypoxia. Oral Tualang honey (0.2 g/kg body weight) and sucrose (1 mL of 7.9%) supplementations were given to the rats daily for 14 days. The rats were then subjected to ~11% continuous normobaric hypoxia for 7 days. The brain homogenate was used to determine oxidative stress markers levels/activities. Results: The sucrose with hypoxia group demonstrated a significant increase in malondialdehyde (MDA) and a decrease in total antioxidant capacity (TAC), catalase (CAT), superoxide dismutase (SOD) and glutathione peroxidase (GPx) levels when compared to sucrose non-hypoxia group. A significant increase in TAC, CAT, SOD and GPx, and a decrease in MDA levels were observed especially in honey with hypoxia group compared to sucrose with hypoxia group. Conclusion: Our findings suggest that normobaric hypoxia disrupts the efficiency of the antioxidant system leading to oxidative damage. Pretreatment with Tualang honey has been demonstrated to increase brain tolerance to hypoxia.