ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: Estrogens has traditionally been known as the female hormone, but this idea has been challenged in early 1990’s and an essential physiological role for estrogen in male fertility was identified. Phytoestrogens are naturally occurring non-steroidal plant chemicals that can act like the female hormone estrogen. The herbs ( anise alfalfa and vervain ) chosen in this study contain phytoestrogens. OBJECTIVE: Previous studies demonstrated controversy of the effects of phytoestrogens on the rat testes .Hence, the present investigation was undertaken to investigate the influence of typical dose of herbs containing phytoestrogen on the rat testis. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Twenty-four apparently normal mature male rats were divided into four groups of 6 animals each. The first "control" group received only 4ml of distilled water as a placebo. The second group received 40mg/kg of anise seed; the third group received 53.3 mg/kg of dried herb of vervain and the fourth group received 400 mg /kg of alfalfa seeds. All experimental groups received the doses through orogastric tube daily for fourteen days. Testicular histology was evaluated by light and enzyme histochemistry. Plasma FSH and testosterone concentrations were taken to support our results. RESULTS: Histological examination of anise, alfalfa and vervain – treated groups showed an increase in the height of germinal epithelia. There was marked lipoprotein lipase activity in the whole of the interstitial tissue which is more in amount in experimental groups than that in control group. Acid phosphatase granules were infiltered the seminiferous epithelia mildly in control group , moderately in anise and vervain groups and markedly in alfalfa group. The number of interstitial cells showing marked acid phosphatase activity was higher in all experimental groups than that in control group. Alkaline phosphatase exhibited intense activity in the boundary tissue of the seminiferous tubules in testes of control and experimental groups but it appeared thicker in the latter. CONCLUSION: The low dose and short duration of treatment used in our study made these phytoestrogen – containing herbs to have a stimulatory effect on leydig cell steroidogenesis. This study also demonstrated that aniseed being the most potent of the three herbs followed by alfalfa in stimulating testosterone synthesis. This is possibly attributed to the coumarin constituent of aniseed and alfalfa. KEY WORDS: phytoestrogen-containing herbs, testis, acid phosphatase, alkaline phosphatase, lipoprotein lipase
Sports skills in some individual games require physical and motor qualities to facilitate the process of skill performance and also require the instructor or trainer to use more than one strategy, method and way to bring the performance to the level of mastery and avoid injury. The aim of the research is to know the effect of using special exercises using tools and their effect on teaching the skill of a front shoulder circle. The research hypothesis is that using special exercises with tools has a positive effect on teaching the skill of a front shoulder circle on the rings apparatus. Research method: - The researchers used the experimental method by designing two equal groups, the control and the experimental, to suit the research
... Show MoreCurrent search problem manifested and widows who community harsh to bear hardships and pains، The goals of continuing the sustainability of life and take responsibility, and especially in light of the difficult circumstances in which Iraq is going through, and the displacement of murder and terrorism, which generated huge numbers of widows and orphans Because of the loss of a breadwinner and which became women and children are the most harm to the victim and as a result of wars and armed tendencies So this research is an important and vital topic opens our horizons important for overlapping roles of women widows and their impact on the achievement and status of Iraqi women and that as long as aptly characterized and their ability to end
... Show MoreWith the fast-growing of neural machine translation (NMT), there is still a lack of insight into the performance of these models on semantically and culturally rich texts, especially between linguistically distant languages like Arabic and English. In this paper, we investigate the performance of two state-of-the-art AI translation systems (ChatGPT, DeepSeek) when translating Arabic texts to English in three different genres: journalistic, literary, and technical. The study utilizes a mixed-method evaluation methodology based on a balanced corpus of 60 Arabic source texts from the three genres. Objective measures, including BLEU and TER, and subjective evaluations from human translators were employed to determine the semantic, contextual an
... Show MoreBackground: Periodontal diseases are inflammatory diseases affecting the supporting tissues of the teeth. One of the leading environmental factors that are closely related not only to the risk but also to the prognosis of periodontitis is smoking. This study aimed to evaluate the influence of smoking on periodontal health status and to measure the levels of matrix metalloproteinase-9 in smokers and nonsmokers chronic periodontitis patients, also it aimed to test the correlation between the levels of matrix metalloproteinase-9 and the clinical periodontal parameters. Materials and Methods: Five milliliters samples of un-stimulated whole saliva and full-mouth clinical periodontal recordings (plaque index, gingival index, bleeding on probing,
... Show MoreBackground: The value of lateral cephalometric radiographs to evaluate the pharyngeal airway is limited because it provided 2-dimensional (2D) images of complex 3-dimensional (3D) anatomic structures. Three dimensional analyses of the airway volumes are required to understand oral and pharyngeal adaptations in mouth breathing and nasal breathing subjects. The aim of this study was to measure the pharyngeal airway volume and the size of the face, then compare between pharyngeal airway volume in mouth breathing and nasal breathing subjects and find the gender difference in each group, also to study the relation between pharyngeal airway volume and the size of the face. Material and Methods: Fifty patients including 28 males and 22 females wit
... Show MoreThis study aimed to explore self and public stigma towards mental illness and associated factors among university students from 11 Arabic‐speaking countries. This cross‐sectional study included 4241 university students recruited from Oman, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Syria, Sudan, Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine and Egypt. The participants completed three self‐administrative online questionnaires—Demographic Proforma (age, gender, family income, etc.), Peer Mental Health Stigmatization Scale and Mental Health Knowledge Questionnaire. There was a significant difference in the average mean between the 11 countries (
A study of Zooplankton community has been carried out at four selected sites on Dukan Lake. Samples of water and zooplankton were collected monthly for the period from July 2015 to February 2016. Some physical and chemical properties of water were studied and the results showed that the air temperature were ranged from 0 to 36.16 °C, water temperature ranged from 2.83 to 34.66 °C, hydrogen ion concentration of studied sites were found to lie in alkaline side, it was ranged between 6.87 to 8.57, electrical conductivity ranged from 190.79 to 850.08 µs.cm¹, turbidity ranged from 0.9-7.7 NTU, and dissolved oxygen from 3.3 to 6.8 mg.l-¹ while BOD5 were ranged from 0.53 to 34.66 mg.l-¹. Concerning to the zooplankton, 37 species were ident
... Show MoreBackground: The purpose of this study is to compare the color changes between the bonded middle third and the unbonded gingival and incisal thirds, fallowing fixed orthodontic treatment Material and method: The color parameter l, a, b has been recorded for each thirds in upper anterior teeth by mean of easy shad device. The has been calculated for gingival, middle and incisal thirds for the upper anterior teeth in 34 patient, 17 males and 17femals, those subject undergone fixed orthodontic treatment Results: The in middle bonded third is highly significant higher than that in incise and gingival thirds p<0.01 because the middle third isn’t expose to oral fluid and dental brushing since it covered by the bracket. Also there
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