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
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Diabetes Mellitus is a group of metabolic diseases characterized by increasing of glucose level in plasma compared with normal value (hyperglycemia). This disease also causes elevation of lipid profile levels except HDL (High density lipoproteins) which increased relatively. The effects of the polyphenolic mixture (catechins, epicatechins, procyanidin B1, procyanidin B2 and procyanidin C1) on total cholesterol (TC), triacylglycerol (TG), high density lipoprotein (HDL) and low density lipoprotein (LDL) were studied in (30) streptozotocin-induced diabetic mice with (20-25)gm weight. Mice were given (30 mg/mL) of Polyphenolic Cocoa beans Extracts (CE) once daily for (7) days before Streptozotocin STZ injection and for (21 day) there after. A
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Introduction: Diabetic foot infections are one of the most severe complications of diabetes. This study was aimed to determine the common bacterial isolates of diabetic foot infections and the in vitro antibiotic susceptibility then treatment.
Methods: A swab was taken from the foot ulcer, and the aerobic bacteria were isolated and identified by cultural, microscopic and biochemical test, then by api-20E system. After that their antibiotic susceptibility pattern was determined. Then local and systemic treatment was used to treat the diabetic foot patients.
Results: Bacterial isolates belonging to twelve species were obtained from diabetic foot patients. Gram (-) bacteria were the predominant pathogens in the diabetic foot infection
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The determiner phrase is a syntactic category that appears inside the noun phrase and makes it definite or indefinite or quantifies it. The present study has found wide parametric differences between the English and Arabic determiner phrases in terms of the inflectional features, the syntactic distribution of determiners and the word order of the determiner phrase itself. In English, the determiner phrase generally precedes the head noun or its premodifying adjectival phrase, with very few exceptions where some determiners may appear after the head noun. In Arabic, parts of the determiner phrase precede the head noun and parts of it must appear after the head noun or after its postmodifying adjectival phrase creating a discontinu
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Azo-Schiff base compounds (L1 and L2) have been synthesized from the reaction of m-hydroxy benzoic acid with 1,5-dimethyl-3-[2-(5-methyl-1H-indol-3-yl)-ethylimino]-2-phenyl-2,3- dihydro-1H-pyrazol-4-ylamine and with 3-[2-(1H-indol-3-yl)-ethylimino]-1,5-dimethyl-2-phenyl- 2,3-dihydro-1H-pyrazol-4-ylamine. The free ligands and their complexes were characterized based on elemental analysis, determination of metal, molar conductivity, (1H, 13C) NMR, UV–vis, FT-IR, mass spectra and thermal analysis (TGA). The molar conductance data revealed that all the complexes are non-electrolytes. The study of complex formation via molar ratio in DMF solution has been investigated and results were consistent to those found in the solid complexes with a rat
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