Agbaje (2007) showed dose-dependent effects of weight loss, hypoglycemia and hypolipidemia in normal Wistar rats after a sin- gle, daily oral dosing (125–500 mg/kg) of fresh aqueous leaf extract of C. citratus for 42 days. These findings also suggest putative ben- eficial effects in type 2 diabetes patients, corroborating its folkloric use in Nigeria. But according to the authors, the mechanisms that underlie such activity must be investigated more thoroughly (Adeneye and Agbaje, 2007).
In a previous study (Bidinotto et al., 2010), we found that a long-term administration of EO at a high dose mitigated the geno- toxic effects of MNU. Therefore, we decided to evaluate whether such genotoxicity is provoked even at small doses. Our data showed that the administration of low EO doses did not ease these effects. Considering that our relevant findings in the serum (cho- lesterol reduction) were produced by the highest EO dose (100 mg/kg), we decided to assess its genotoxicity but found no in- crease of DNA damage in peripheral blood leukocytes.