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 main function of a power system is to supply the customer load demands as economically as possible. Risk criterion is the probability of not meeting the load. This paper presents a methodology to assess probabilistic risk criteria of Al-Qudus plant before and after expansion; as this plant consists of ten generating units presently and the Ministry Of Electricity (MOE) is intending to compact four units to it in order to improve the performance of Iraqi power system especially at Baghdad region. The assessment is calculated by a program using Matlab programming language; version 7.6. Results show that the planned risk is (0.003095) that is (35 times) less than that in the present plant risk; (0.1091); which represents respectable imp
... Show MoreA study of the singlet and triplet states of two electron systems in the first excited state was performed using a simple quantum mechanical model, which assigns the 1s,and 2s orbital with two different variational parameters. Our results agree with a high level calculation used by Snow and Bills.
The influence of sintering and annealing temperatures on the structural, surface morphology, and optical properties of Ag2Cu2O4 thin films which deposited on glass substrates by pulsed laser deposition method have been studied. Ag2Cu2O4 powders have polycrystalline structure, and the Ag2Cu2O4 phase was appear as low intensity peak at 35.57o which correspond the reflection from (110) plane. Scan electron microscopy images of Ag2Cu2O4 powder has been showed agglomerate of oxide particles with platelets shape. The structure of thin films has been improved with annealing temperature. Atomic Force micrographs of Ag2Cu2O4 films showed uniform, homogenous films and the shape of grains was almost spherical and larger grain size of 97.85 nm has o
... Show MoreInthis investigation the epoxy was reinforced by orange peel and carbonized orange peel particles with percentages (5%, 10%, 15% and 20% by weight).Mechanical tests like:Tensile, flexural,Hardness, impact and compression were carried out on these natural epoxy composites. The results showed the tensile strength have a higher value by adding (15% by weight )of orange peel and carbonized orange peel particles to epoxy,while the value (10% by weight ) of addition is suitable to get improvement in the other mechanical properties as flexural strength, Hardness, impact and compressive strength. The epoxy / carbonized orange peel powder have the best valuesin all mechanical properties than t
Breast tumors patients generally have more oxidative stress than normal females. This was clear from a highly significant elevation (P<0.05) in malondialdehyde level in RBCs, serum and tissue of all patients groups with breast cancer as compared with control group. In this study we had found that free radicals in malignant breast tumors were higher than benign tumors, therefore the MDA might be used as a marker for prognosis of the disease.
This study aimed to compare lysyl oxidase-1 level in diabetic patients with and without renal dysfunction, that LOX-1 may be an indicator for the early stage of diabetic nephropathy (DN). In addition to finding it is a relationship with kidney functions in Iraqi diabetic patients with and without renal dysfunction. Blood was obtained from 25 healthy individuals as a control group (G1), 25 diabetic patients with renal dysfunction, and 25 diabetic patients without renal dysfunction. Age range 40-60 years for all subjects. BMI (25-27) Kg/m2 . The serum was used for the analysis of LOX-1, FBG, urea, creatinine and uric acid. Whole blood is used for the determination of HbA1C. Results of FBG and HbA1C revealed a significant increase in G2 and G
... Show MoreThe present researchers are trying to enhance the properties of paper sheet that used widely in many fields such as printing and packaging. The enhancement of paper quality is also possible to preserve paper documents of all kinds, as they are the true record, full of the history, achievements of the human being and the intellectual and cultural of the country. It is possible to improve its physical and mechanical properties and preserve them from damage through the use of some solutions of polymeric adhesives, which act as protective barriers against water and moisture penetration. The paper also has the advantage of porosity, which has been overcome by using three types of polymeric adhesives (Nitro Cellulose, Polyvinyl alcohol acetate, a
... Show MoreA new class of biologically active nanocomposites and modified polymers based on poly (vinyl alcohol) (PVA) with some organic compounds [II, IV, V and VI] were synthesized using silver nanoparticles (Ag-NPs). All compounds were synthesized using nucleophilic substitution interactions and characterized by FTIR, DSC and TGA. The biological activity of the modified polymers was evaluated against: gram (+) (staphylococcus aureus) and gram (-): (Es cherichia coli bacteria). Antimicrobial films are developed based on modified poly (vinyl alcohol) MPVA and Ag-NPs nanoparticles. The nanocomposites and modified polymers showed better antibacterial activities against Escherichia coli (Gram negative) than against Staphyloc
... Show MoreThe nuclear structure included the matter, proton and neutron densities of the ground state, the nuclear root-mean-square (rms) radii and elastic form factors of one neutron 23O and 24F halo nuclei have been studied by the two body model of within the harmonic oscillator (HO) and Woods-Saxon (WS) radial wave functions. The calculated results show that the two body model within the HO and WS radial wave functions succeed in reproducing neutron halo in these exotic nuclei. Moreover, the Glauber model at high energy has been used to calculated the rms radii and reaction cross section of these nuclei.
The neutron, proton, and matter densities of the ground state of the proton-rich 23Al and 27P exotic nuclei were analyzed using the binary cluster model (BCM). Two density parameterizations were used in BCM calculations namely; Gaussian (GS) and harmonic oscillator (HO) parameterizations. According to the calculated results, it found that the BCM gives a good description of the nuclear structure for above proton-rich exotic nuclei. The elastic form factors of the unstable 23Al and 27P exotic nuclei and those of their stable isotopes 27Al and 31P are studied by the plane-wave Born approximation. The main difference between the elastic form factors of unstable nuclei and the
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