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
Background: The development of orthodontic biomaterials that attract less biofilm has been a goal for decades. Adhesion and colonization of cariogenic streptococci are considered to play key roles in the development of enamel demineralization related to orthodontic materials. The aim of this study was to quantitatively evaluate the Mutans streptococci adhesion to coated orthodontic archwires (Epoxy and Teflon) and uncoated archwires (stainless steel and nickel-titanium) with respect to incubation time in the presence and absence of saliva. Material and Method: Six types of archwires stainless steel and nickel titanium with two type of coating (Epoxy, Teflon) were used in this study. Twelve specimens of each archwire were incubated in steri
... Show MoreSliver / Sliver chloride is as old used from human but the sliver / sliver chloride nanoparticles have only recently been recogenized. They have used in medicin and agiculture. In the present study have been investigation the effecte biosynthesis Sliver / Sliver chloride nanoparticles as antibacterial by demonstrated that Ag / AgCl NPs arrest the growth of many bacterial: S.typhimurium, k. pneumonia. S. aureus, L.monocytogenes, B. Anthracis, E. coli, C. frundi, S. Pneumonia, P. Aeruginosa. The elements compestion and crystallization panal of biosynthesized nanoparticles were chracterazated by FTIR, XRD and SEM. From XRD, It is confirmed the synthesized nanoparticles contain Sliver / Sliver chloride elements. Synthesized Ag / AgCl NPs showed
... Show MoreIn this study, successive electrocoagulation (EC) and electro-oxidation (EO) processes were used to minimize some of the major pollutants in real wastewater, such as organics (detected by chemical oxygen demand (COD)), and turbidity. The wastewater utilized in the present study was collected from the Midland Refinery Company in Baghdad-Iraq. The performance of the successive batch EC-EO processes was studied by utilizing Graphite and Aluminum (Al) as monopolar anode electrodes and stainless steel (st.st.) as the cathode. The Taguchi experimental design approach was used to attain the best experimental conditions for COD reduction as a major response. Starting from chemical oxygen demand COD of (600 ppm), the effects of current density (C
... Show MoreThis study designed to prepare ultrafine apixaban (APX) o/w nanoemulsion (NE) based gel with droplet size below 50 nm as a good method for transdermal APX delivery without using permeation enhancer, alternatively, the formulation components itself act as permeation enhancer. APX, a potent oral anticoagulant drug that selectively and directly inhibit coagulation factor Xa, was selected as a good candidate for transdermal delivery as it displays poor water solubility (0.028 mg/mL) and low bioavailability (50%). APX-NE gel was prepared using triacetin, triton-x-100 and carbitol as oil phase, surfactant and cosurfactant respectively, while Carbopol 940 used as a gelling agent. Ex vivo permeation of APX-NE gel through human stratum c
... Show MoreHuman resources constitute the most important recourses that the organization owned today, as it may have developed financial and technology resources to achieve their goals, but they are not able to use it with required efficiency and effective and quality desired unless there is human resources that have good skills, experiences and talents that able to directing and exploited ideally that compatible with market requirements, where today's market and business organizations which compete naturally inherent talent, so the task is to attracting and developing talented resources and preservation these talented resources from the challenges that facing organizations.
The research seek to achieve
... Show MoreIn this research an experimental study has done for testing the thermal performance of selective surfaces used in solar collectors for substrate of iron, galvanized iron and aluminum which are commercially available. The coating process for the samples has done in two ways, the electroplating and the chemical spray pyrolysis. The results of the thermal performance test of these samples are comparing with the thermal performance of a sample without paint and other paint with black paint without shines commercially available. For the electroplated samples, the performance study has done for different immersion time in plating bath, the
distance between electrical poles, the current density, and area ratio of the sample plated area to
The reservoir characterization and rock typing is a significant tool in performance and prediction of the reservoirs and understanding reservoir architecture, the present work is reservoir characterization and quality Analysis of Carbonate Rock-Types, Yamama carbonate reservoir within southern Iraq has been chosen. Yamama Formation has been affected by different digenesis processes, which impacted on the reservoir quality, where high positively affected were: dissolution and fractures have been improving porosity and permeability, and destructive affected were cementation and compaction, destroyed the porosity and permeability. Depositional reservoir rock types characterization has been identified de
The increasing drinking water demand in many countries leads to an increase in the use of desalination plants, which are considered a great solution for water treatment processes. Reverse osmosis (RO) and electro-dialysis (ED) systems are the most popular membrane processes used to desalinate water at high salinity. Both systems work by separating the ionic contaminates and disposing of them as a brine solution, but ED uses electrical current as a driving force while RO uses osmotic pressure. A direct comparison of reverse osmosis and electro-dialysis systems is needed to highlight process development similarities and variances. This work aims to provide an overview of previous studies on reverse osmosis and electro-dial
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