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 current study examines the combined impacts of ultrasonic waves and nano silica (NS) on reducing the viscosity Sharqy Baghdad heavy crude oil with an API gravity of 20.32. NS of an average particle size of 59.93 nm and 563.23 m²/g surface area were produced utilizing the sol-gel technique from Iraqi sand. The XRD analysis indicates the existence of an amorphous silica, the SEM analysis showed that NS tends to agglomerate, and the FTIR spectra exhibited the presence of siloxane and silanol groups. In addition, the TGA analysis demonstrated a total weight loss of 15.62%, validating the thermal stability of the NS. The experiments included a study of the impact of ultrasonic power, exposure time, duty cycle, temperature, and the c
... Show MoreToday’s world confronts various threats from different sources. Similar to deprivation of energy, economic facilities, or political deposition, educational poisoning is one of the dangerous phenomena that result from distorting and corrupting the ethical and educational components of teaching by various material and non – material means.This paper sheds light on the concept of the educational system which is not a mere process of teaching, but rather an endless process of socialization that begins in the family and develops into religious, ethical, scientific and mythological systems, all of which form the cognitive component. It also defines the necessary means by which it is transmitted from one generation into another. The educati
... Show MoreThis paper deals the prediction of the process of random spatial data of two properties, the first is called Primary variables and the second is called secondary variables , the method that were used in the prediction process for this type of data is technique Co-kriging , the method is usually used when the number of primary variables meant to predict for one of its elements is measured in a particular location a few (because of the cost or difficulty of obtaining them) compare with secondary variable which is the number of elements are available and highly correlated with primary variables, as was the&nbs
... Show MoreThe purpose of this paper is to apply different transportation models in their minimum and maximum values by finding starting basic feasible solution and finding the optimal solution. The requirements of transportation models were presented with one of their applications in the case of minimizing the objective function, which was conducted by the researcher as real data, which took place one month in 2015, in one of the poultry farms for the production of eggs
... Show MoreMany people take protein supplements in an effort to gain muscle. However, there is some controversy as to whether this is really effective. There is evidence suggesting that consuming high level s of protein may in fact have negative side effects for health. The current study included 29 young Iraqi building muscles in two different groups (taken and not protein supplements) (age range=17-31 years), the cases were selected from family, friends, college students, and Gyms), from November 2014 to March 2015. A careful history was obtained from each volunteer including age, duration of sports, type of supplements, and family history of diseases. Some biochemical parameters like (glucose, urea, uric acid, creatinine, bilirubin, serum protei
... Show MoreBackground: Health professionals have a crucial role in promotion, support and management of breastfeeding. To be effective in this effort, the clinician should focus on the issue from the preconception stage through pregnancy and delivery, and continue in subsequent infant care. Aim of the study: to assess the effectiveness of the UNICEF/WHO 40-hour of breast feeding training through the assess breastfeeding knowledge and attitudes of the health profession staff before and after training course.
In this study, condensation polymerization was used to synthesize a number of novel liquid crystal polymers with 1,3,4-oxadiazole rings based on melamine. The new synthesized polymers were characterized by Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) and proton nuclear magnetic resonance (1HNMR) spectroscopy. Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and optical polarization microscopy (OPM) were used to investigate their liquid crystalline properties. The results demonstrated that throughout a wide temperature range, most of the polymers exhibited columnar (CohX) and nematic (N) liquid crystalline phases.
In this work, a series of new Nucleoside analogues (D-galactopyranose linked to oxepanebenzimidazole moiety) was synthesized via multisteps synthesis. The first step involved preparation of two benzimidazoles 2-styrylbenzimidazole and 2-(phenyl ethynyl) benzimidazole via reaction of phenylenediamine with cinnamic acid or ?-phenyl propiolic acid. Electrophilic addition of the prepared benzimidazoles by three anhydrides in the second step afforded (4-6) and (14-16) which in turn were treated with 1,2,3,4-di-O-isopropylidene galactopyranose in the third step to afford a series of the desirable protected nucleoside analogues (7-9) ,(17-19)which after hydrolysis in methanolic sodium methoxidein the fourth step afforded the free nucleoside analog
... Show MoreSmall ring heterocycles containing nitrogen and sulfur have been under investigation for a long time because of their important medicinal properties. Among the wide range of heterocycles explored to develop pharmaceutically important molecules, thiadiazoles had played an important role in medicinal chemistry. A survey of literature had shown that compounds having thiadiazole nucleus possess a broad range of biological activities such as anti-inflammatory (1), antibacterial (2), and antifungal activities (3). Thiazine-4-one and their derivatives are import classes of compounds in organic and medicinal chemistry. The thiazine-4-one ring system is a core structure in various synthetic pharmaceutical agents, displaying a broad spectrum of biolo
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