Background: It has been shown that dietary supplementation with Malaysian red palm oil (RPO) improves functional recovery following ischaemia/reperfusion injury in perfused rat hearts.We subsequently investigated the composition of several other palm oil products.These palm oils are consumed as a regular dietary supplementation in different states in Nigeria, Afriea.Materials and Methods: Male Wistar rats were divided into 3 groups and fed a standard rat chow diet (SRC), SRC+RPO, and SRC+SFO oil respectively, for five weeks.After the feeding period, hearts were excised and perfused on a Langendorff perfusion apparatus.After per fusion, hearts were snap-frozen in liquid nitrogen and analyzed for myocardial infarct size (MI) and Akt phosphorylation.Coronary flow was collected after ischaemia for MMP2 activity determination.Results: Dietary RPO-supplementation decreased MI size (P<0.05) when compared to SRC and SFO-supplementation (9.1 ± 1.0% vs 30.2 ± 3.9% and 27.1 ± 2.4%, respectively).Both dietary RPO-and SFO-supplementation were able to decrease MMP2 activity (P<0.05) when compared to SRC (75kDa: 1389 ± 124 AU and 1433 ± 103 AU vs 1724 ± 69 AU; 72kDa: 2635 ± 163 AU and 2597 ± 158 AU vs 3201 ± 104 AU).Akt phosphorylation was increased (P<0.05) with RPO supplementation when compared to SFO supplementation (36.38 ± 10.23 % vs 20.54 ± 4.57 %).Analysis of palm oils from Nigeria, Africa showed a similar composition than that of the Malaysian counterpart.Conclusion: Malaysian RPO-and other natural antioxidant supplements reduced myocardial ischaemia/reperfusion injury.We hypothesize that African palm oil will have similar effects than the Malaysian counterpart.At present studies are being carried out on South-American palm oil products to determine if it also offers cardioprotection following ischaemia/reperfusion injury in the isolated perfused rat heart.