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
Geographic information system (GIS) is utilized in a variety of tasks such as, resource management, urban planning, emergency planning in case of accident, and rapid response etc. The aim of this study is to produce a digital map with the aid of GIS and a survey data. A survey data is conducted with Total Station technique on sanitary planning positions. The campus of Baghdad University is chosen to test the execution and accuracy of the results for sewer manholes locations. During the field survey, Total Station (Nikon Nivo) is used to identify the 3-D coordinates for each location. Finally, Geographical Information System (GIS) are utilized to present the digital map of the network sewer pipe line to the end users. Although Geographic Inf
... Show MoreThe article considers a creolized text as a means of modern communication, describing its key verbal and visual components; the relationship of concepts polycode and creolized text has been shown; the universal basic image features have been called; the following kinds of creolized texts have been distinguished; it has been proved that the effective means of attracting the attention of the addressee is the use of expressive font features, which are divided into two groups: topographics (mechanisms of varying of areal syntagmatic of a text) and supragraphcs (change of typeface of font).
The aim of the research is to identify the extent of the direct and indirect relationship of the population growth of the cities as a result of the urbanization process witnessed by the Arab region for the urban development of the city structures and their formative structures, changing the planning criteria of some cities and the extent of their changes in spatial and temporal dimensions and their relation to the standards of the western cities. In changing the concept of the modern Arab city, such as the emergence of new functional uses affecting the change in the pattern of formal formations of its urban fabric associated with its ancient morphology and distinctive human nature. The research seeks to identify the extent to which plann
... Show MoreLanguage plays a major role in all aspects of life. Communication is regarded as the most important of these aspects, as language is used on a daily basis by humanity either in written or spoken forms. Language is also regarded as the main factor of exchanging peoples’ cultures and traditions and in handing down these attributes from generation to generation. Thus, language is a fundamental element in identifying peoples’ ideologies and traditions in the past and the present. Despite these facts, the feminist linguists have objections to some of the language structures, demonstrating that language is gender biased to men. That is, language promotes patriarchal values. This pushed towards developing extensive studies to substantiate s
... Show MoreThe aim of this paper is to identify Nano-particles that have been used in diagnosis and treatment of leishmaniasis in Iraq. All experiments conducted in this field were based on the following nanoparticles: gold nanoparticles, silver nanoparticles, zinc nanoparticles, and sodium chloride nanoparticles. Most of these experiments were reviewed in terms of differences in the concentrations of nanoparticles and the method that was used in the experiments whether it was in vivo or in vitro. These particles used in most experiments succeeded in inhibiting the growth of Leishmania parasites.
This study aims to encapsulate atenolol within floating alginate-ethylcellulose beads as an oral controlled-release delivery system using aqueous colloidal polymer dispersion (ACPD) method.To optimize drug entrapment efficiency and dissolution behavior of the prepared beads, different parameters of drug: polymer ratio, polymer mixture ratio, and gelling agent concentration were involved.The prepared beads were investigated with respect to their buoyancy, encapsulation efficiency, and dissolution behavior in the media: 0.1 N HCl (pH 1.2), acetate buffer (pH 4.6) and phosphate buffer (pH 6.8). The release kinetics and mechanism of the drug from the prepared beads was investigated.All prepare
... Show MoreAbstract This study seeks to deal academically with how the EU treats clandestine immigration, through adopting a purley security approach, based on the European understanding of security threats posed to the security of communities and States in EU at all levels. So they agreed upon criminalizing this threat within the bloc while using repressive tools and steps to limit illegal immigrants flow to European territories. Accordingly, the EU gave the phenomen a security character. So it takes it from low politics level , that of employment and economic field to that of high politics, as a new security problem lying within a new security language embraced by ruling European elites, in other words EU touched on this issue as a speech act emp
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