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
Sustainable vegetative management plays a significant role in improving soil quality in degraded agricultural landscapes by enhancing soil microbial biomass. This study investigated the effects of grass buffers (GBs), biomass crops (BCs), grass waterways (GWWs), and agroforestry buffers (ABs) on soil microbial biomass and soil organic C (SOC) compared with continuous corn (
This thesis was aimed to study gas hydrates in terms of their equilibrium conditions in bulk and their effects on sedimentary rocks. The hydrate equilibrium measurements for different gas mixtures containing CH4, CO2 and N2 were determined experimentally using the PVT sapphire cell equipment. We imaged CO2 hydrate distribution in sandstone, and investigated the hydrate morphology and cluster characteristics via μCT. Moreover, the effect of hydrate formation on the P-wave velocities of sandstone was investigated experimentally.
This research aims to analyze and simulate biochemical real test data for uncovering the relationships among the tests, and how each of them impacts others. The data were acquired from Iraqi private biochemical laboratory. However, these data have many dimensions with a high rate of null values, and big patient numbers. Then, several experiments have been applied on these data beginning with unsupervised techniques such as hierarchical clustering, and k-means, but the results were not clear. Then the preprocessing step performed, to make the dataset analyzable by supervised techniques such as Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA), Classification And Regression Tree (CART), Logistic Regression (LR), K-Nearest Neighbor (K-NN), Naïve Bays (NB
... Show MoreA niger, a fungus which doesn't have high ability to production lipid, this fungus has been select to investigate the non oleaginicity. In this search, there are explorations about: i) growth profile ii) enzymes profile iii) isoforms. Growth profile shows that this fungus doesn't have ability to accumulate lipid more than 6% while bio mass are around 10g/l in spite of the presence of glucose in the media till the end of cultivation time and excision of nitrogen within 24 hrs. In enzyme study, we investigate all lipogenic enzymes Malic enzyme (ME), Fatty acid synthase (FAS), ATP: Citrate lays (ACL), NAD+ isocitrate dehydrogenase (NAD+ICDH), Glucose-6-phosphate (G6PD), and 6-phosphogluconate dehydrogenase (6PGD), all these enzymes show, ac
... Show MoreThe goal of the extant revision was to explore the influence of caffeic acid (CA) extracted from Arctium lappa L. on lipid profile and histology of aorta in rats . Analytical study demonstrated a high percentage of both chlorogenic and caffeic acid in the 80 % methanol extract of the aerial parts (leaves and stems) of Arctium lappa L. from the family Asteraceace. Hypolipidemic activity of caffeic acid was studied against cholesterol induced hypercholesterolemia in Wistar albino rats for thirty days. Rats were separated into normal group (A), hypercholesterolemic positive controller group (B). While, the rest three groups (C, D and E) attended as hypercholesterol
... Show MoreThe study was conducted to assess the attitude and awareness of a sample of people regarding the indiscriminate slaughter and its effects on health and the environment compared with slaughtering in a slaughterhouse. The sample consisted of 120 persons from six equal professional groups contacted with the butchery labour (livestock keeper, truck driver, butcher, veterinarian, shopkeeper and consumer). The age ranged 22-76 years old, mean 52±10 years, lived ≥ 5 years in the Baghdad city. The results showed that there is a preference for slaughtering inside the slaughterhouse due to the presence of veterinary examination, slaughtering and preparing meat in a healthy, easy-to-clean places, unlike the indiscriminate sla
... Show MoreStudy was made on the optical properties of Ge2oSe8othinfilms prepared by vac-uum evaporation as radiated by (0,34,69) Gy of 13 ray.The optical band gab Eg and tailing band A.Et were studied in the photon energy range ( 1 to 3)eV. The a-Ge20Se8o film was found to be indirect gap with energy gap of (1.965,1.9 , 1.82) eV at radiated by B ray with absorption doses of (0,34,69)Gy respectively.The Ea and AEt of Ge20Se80 films showed adecrease in E8 and an increase in AEt with radiation. This be-havior may be related to structural defects and dangling bonds.
ZnS thin films were grown onto glass substrates by flash evaporation technique, the effects of ? – rays on the optical constants of ZnS these films were studied. It was found that ? – rays affected all the parameters under investigation.
Background: Isoxazoles are an important class of five-membered unsaturated heterocyclic compounds. They show several applications in diverse areas such as pharmaceuticals, agrochemistry and industry. Isoxazoles are also found in natural sources showing insecticidal, plant growth regulation and pigment functions. Current study was conducted for synthesis of twenty five new Isoxazole derivatives and to evaluate the in vitro antibacterial activities of these derivatives. Methods: Benzaldoxime and their substituted [I] ae were prepared via addition-elimination reactions between aromatic aldehyde and hydroxylamine hydrochloride. In a second step, para-or meta-substituted benzaldoximes [I] ae were reacted with N-chlorosucceinimide in DMF to yield
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