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Abstract

Protein deficiency may cause histological alterations and pathological effects in skeletal muscle, leading to reduced mus-cle size and functional degeneration. Bambara groundnuts contain essential amino acids that have the potential to meet the body’s protein requirements. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the effect of bambara groundnut supplemen-tation on skeletal muscle in protein-deficient mice. Twenty-five female mice were divided into five groups (control, pro-tein deficiency, and protein deficiency with 100, 200, and 300 g of bambara groundnut supplementation/kg of feed). The treatment was administered for 2 months. At the end of the experiment, the left gastrocnemius muscles of the mice were collected and fixed in 10% neutral buffered formalin. Histological samples were processed using the paraffin method. Tissues sections (6 µm thick) were prepared and stained with hematoxylin–eosin. The results showed that protein defi-ciency caused myofiber splitting and degeneration, along with reductions in fascicle area and myofiber number, diameter, and area. Meanwhile, bambara groundnut supplementation improved histological damage to skeletal muscle and in-creased fascicle area as well as myofiber number, diameter, and area. Thus, bambara groundnut supplementation was shown to be effective in ameliorating histological damage in the skeletal muscle of protein-deficient mice.

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