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
Effect of copper doping and thermal annealing on the structural and optical properties of Zn0.5Cd0.5S thin films prepared by chemical spray pyrolysis have been studied. Depositions were done at 250°C on glass substrate. The structural properties and surface morphology of deposited films were studied using X-ray diffraction (XRD) and photomicroscope (PHM) techniques. XRD studies reveal that all films are crystalline tetragonal structure. The film crystallinity are increased with 1% Cu-doping concentration and also increased for the films annealed at 300°C than the other studied cases. The lattice constant 'a' and 'c' varies with doping concentrations from 5.487Å to 5.427Å and 10.871Å to 10.757Å respectively. The grain size attained
... Show MoreLiver is considered as the first target for the toxic effects of toxins and other xenobiotics, and this can be attributed to its role as a site which receive all absorbed xenobiotics from the gastrointestinal tract and its role as a major site for biotransformation of xenobiotics. The present study was designed to evaluate the possible hepatoprotective effect of benfotiamine against CCl4-induced hepatotoxicity in rats. The study was conducted on 48 male albino rats; the animals were allocated into 8 groups (6 rats in each group) and treated as follow: 4 groups treated with oral doses of either normal saline, benfotiamine (100 mg/kg), thiamine (100 mg/kg), N-acetylcystein (400 mg/kg) only without induction of hepatic damage. Th
... Show MoreMultiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic, inflammatory demyelinating disease of central nervous system with complex etiopathogenesis that impacts young adults (Lee et al., 2015), and MS impacts younger and middle aged character and leads to a range of disabilities that can alter their daily routines (Yara et al, 2010). Although, the exact cause of MS is still undetermined, the disease is mediated by adaptive immunity through the infiltration of T cells into the central nervous system (Bjelobaba et al, 2017). MS causes the Focal neurological symptomsand biochemical changes in the molecular level and the variation of neural cells such as loss or alteration of sensation, motor function, visible signs such as blurred vision or transient blindness,
... Show MoreAdsorption of Acetone and 2-Butanone on Iraqi siliceouns rocks powder have been investigated. UV technique has been used to determine the adsorption isotherms. The results showed that the adsorption isotherms obeyed Freundlich adsorption equation. The results showed that the adsorption increases with increasing acidity of solutions. The adsorption was exothermic process, increasing temperature leads to decreasing adsorption. H, S, G were calculated
This work consists of a numerical simulation to predict the velocity and temperature distributions, and an experimental work to visualize the air flow in a room model. The numerical work is based on non-isothermal, incompressible, three dimensional, k turbulence model, and solved using a computational fluid dynamic (CFD) approach, involving finite volume technique to solve continuity, momentum and energy equations, that governs the room’s turbulent flow domain. The experimental study was performed using (1/5) scaled room model of the actual dimensions of the room to simulate room air flow and visualize the flow pattern using smoke generated from burnt herbs and collected in a smoke generator to delivered through
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The products of composites material are very sesetive to many variables, such as manufacturing process, additive materials, …. etc. Filler or additive plays a major role to determine the formation of the properties and behavior of the composites. In this study, polyethylene terephthalate-based compounds were produced and characterized. The work is concerned to prepare samples of Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) - zinc-ferrite (ZnFe2O4) with different addition ratio as zinc-ferrite (1, 2, 5, 10, 15 and 20) wt% obtained from mixing the solution with a hot pressing method applied under optimum conditions. The densities of the composites for all samples were calculated. Through the work the diffusion of zinc-ferrite i
... Show MoreInelastic transverse and longitudinal form factors of same parity have
been studied for B 10 nucleus in the frame work of the shell model for
many particles, by using He 4 as an inert core and the remaining
particles were distributed in 3 / 2 1 / 2 1p ,1p which form the model
space. The calculations of the present work based on the harmonic
oscillator potential with fixed size parameter (b). Here we use the
first order correction for the perturbation theory and the interaction
from Cohen-Kurath (CK). Adding the core-polarization effects to
form factors calculations gave a good agreement with the
experimental data. Calculations have been performed for the
transverse excited states of: (1 ,0 )at ( E 0.178M
The effect of internal acoustic excitation on the leading-edge, separated boundary layers and the aerodynamic performance of NACA23015 cross section airfoil are examined as a function of excitation location with ranging frequency range (50-400) Hz of the introduced acoustic. Tests are separately conducted in two sections, open type wind tunnels at the Reynolds number of 3.3x105 for measurement at angle of attack (0, 3, 6, 9 &12) deg. and 3x104 for the visualization at angle of attack (12) deg. based on the airfoil chord. Results indicated that the excitation frequency and the excitation location are the key parameters to alter the flow properties and thus to improve the aerodynamic performance. The most effective excitation frequency
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