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
The present study aimed to investigate the anatomical and histological, aspects of the stomach in two different Iraqi birds, (common wood pigeon, Columba palumbus (herbivorous) and the barn owl, Tyto alba (carnivorous). Stomach in the two studied birds IS divided into two parts, glandular or true stomach (proventriculus) and the muscular stomach or gizzard (ventriculus). Proventriculus in the common wood pigeon appeared as fusiform shaped tube and separated from the gizzard by isthmus while in the barn owl, it was pearsshaped , wider and shorter than that of the common wood pigeon and not separated from the gizzard by isthmus. In common wood pigeon, gizzard appeared as biconvex lens lining with yellowish green tissue, the koilin , while
... Show MoreThe heavy metal cadmium is extremely harmful to both humans and animals. Zinc supplementation protects the biological system and reduces cadmium-induced toxicity. This study aimed to determine whether zinc chloride (ZnCl2) could protect male mice with the damaged liver induced by cadmium chloride (CdCl2). The protective role of zinc chloride and expression of the metallothionein (MT), Ki-67, and Bcl-2 apoptotic proteins in hepatocytes were studied after subchronic exposure of mice to cadmium chloride for 21 days. Thirty male mice were randomly categorized into 6 groups (5 mice/group) as follows: a control group that did not receive any treatment, a group given ZnCl2 at 10 mg/kg alone, and two groups received ZnCl2 (10 mg/kg) i
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Number of new polyester and polyamide are prepared as derivatives from 5,5`-(1,4-phenylene)-bis-(1,3,4-thiadiazole-2-amine) [C1], three series of heterocyclic compounds were synthesized.The first series includes the Schiff base [C2] prepared from the reaction between compound [C1] with p-hydroxy benzaldehyde in presence of acetic acid and absolute ethanol , then these derivatives have reaction with maleic anhydride , phthalic anhydride and sodium azide, respectively to obtain the compounds [C3-5] contaning (oxazepine and tetrazole) rings.The third series of compounds [C1-5] has transformed to their polymers [C6-15] by reaction with adipoyl chloride and glutroyl chloride , respectively. The reaction was followed by T.L.C and ident
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In this paper we proposed the method of X-ray fluorescence (XRF) determination of some essential trace elements in medicinal herbs and vitamin-mineral complexes at the level of 100-101 mg/ml. To increase sensitivity and selectivity of the determination we simple and effective approach based on the extraction of metal ions from aqueous solutions with chemically modified polyurethane foam sorbents followed by direct XRF analysis. The conditions of sorption preconcentration of Co(II), Ni(II) and Zn(II) ions with modified sorbents were optimized. The proposed approach is used for the determination of trace elements in several kinds of medicinal herbs (coltsfoot leaves, nettle leaves and yarrow herb) and vitamin-mineral
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The liver (hepatic) is one of the largest glands or organs of the digestive system in the body of living organisms, including rodents, take the squirrel in this study for example. The study and the collection of sources emerged to be put into the hands of those, especially those interested in histological studies, including junior or professionals and veterinarians, knowledge of the stains used in the research and their final results.
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The current study was designed to identify the histological composition of the ileum in the Caucasian squirrel Sciurus anomalus. Ten adult squirrels were used for the present study. Animals were anesthetized, anatomized, fixed the study specimens in 10% formalin solution, and conducted a series of histological staining techniques. The ileum consists of four main tunicae represented by mucosa, submucosa, muscularis, and serosa. The tunica mucosa consists of three secondary layers: the epithelial lining layer, lamina propria, and muscularis mucosa. The epithelial lining comprises simple columnar epithelial tissue composed of columnar cells and goblet cells. The lamina propria contains simple straight tubular glands called the int
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A histological study was conducted to examine the structure of Cerebellum in Coturnix coturnix (Linnaeus). The results showed that the cerebellum is a portion of the Rhombencephalon and Metencephalon lying behind the cerebrum, the surface of the cerebellum contains deep folds and appears spherical in its shape. It represented the dorsal side of metencephalon and surrounded the roof of IV ventricle. The cerebellum consists of three parts spino cerebellum, cerebro cerebelluum and vestibulo cerebellum; and three lobes anterior lobe, posterior lobe and flocculonodular lobe. The corpus cerebellum (Vermis) consists of nine folds called cerebellar-folia (IX-I) and separated from each other by sulci.  
... Show MoreAnalysis of variance (ANOVA) is one of the most widely used methods in statistics to analyze the behavior of one variable compared to another. The data were collected from a sample size of 65 adult males who were nonsmokers, light smokers, or heavy smokers. The aim of this study is to analyze the effects of cigarette smoking on high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) level and determine whether smoking causes a reduction in this level, by using the completely randomized design (CRD) and Kruskal- Wallis method. The results showed that the assumptions of the one- way ANOVA are not satisfied, while, after transforming original data by using log transformation, they are satisfied. From the results, a significantly
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This research aims to study the effect of microwave furnace heat on the mechanical properties and fatigue life of aluminum alloy (AA 2024-T3). Four conditions were used inside microwave furnace (specimens subjected to heat as dry for 30 and 60min. and specimens subjected to heat as wet (water) for 30 and 60 min.), and compared all results with original alloy (AA 2024-T3). Tensile, fatigue, hardness and surface roughness tests were used in this investigation. It is found that hardness of dry conditions is higher than wet conditions and it increases with increasing of time duration inside microwave furnace for dry and wet conditions. Also, tensile strength has the same behavior of hardness, but it increases with decreasing
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