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 included the collection of soft samples for Ipomoea carnea Jacq. The anatomical properties of the leaf, which included the characteristics of the surface epidermis, the vertical section of the leaf, the transverse section of the petiole, the pedicel and the indumentum, as well as the study of leaf venation, were examined
Heat transfer process and fluid flow in a solar chimney used for natural ventilation are investigated numerically in the present work. Solar chimney was tested by selecting different positions of absorber namely: at the back side, front side, and at the middle of the air gap. CFD analysis based on finite volume method is used to predict the thermal performance, and air flow in two dimensional solar chimney under unsteady state condition, to identify the effect of different parameters such as solar radiation. Results show that a solar chimney with absorber at the middle of the air gap gives better ventilation performance. A comparison between the numerical and previous experimental results shows fair agreement.
Background: Coated aesthetic archwires are currently the existing solutions for the esthetic problem, but the color of these archwires tends to change overtime. This study was aimed to evaluate the color stability of different types of esthetic archwires from four different companies at different time periods after immersion of two different staining drinks which are tea and Pepsi cola. Materials and methods: 48 specimens were prepared, each specimen contains 10 aesthetic archwires; and were divided according to type of solution into two groups: A (tea) &B (Pepsi cola); each group contained 24 specimens (12 specimens were immersed in the staining solution as 4 specimens for each time intervals and 12 specimens were immersed in distilled wa
... Show MoreOne of the costliest problems facing the production of hydrocarbons in unconsolidated sandstone reservoirs is the production of sand once hydrocarbon production starts. The sanding start prediction model is very important to decide on sand control in the future, including whether or when sand control should be used. This research developed an easy-to-use Computer program to determine the beginning of sanding sites in the driven area. The model is based on estimating the critical pressure drop that occurs when sand is onset to produced. The outcomes have been drawn as a function of the free sand production with the critical flow rates for reservoir pressure decline. The results show that the pressure drawdown required to
... Show MoreThis study was conducted to examine the anatomical aspects of
Background : The aim of this work is to study the clinical features and causative fungi of tinea pedis in diabetic and non-diabetic patients. Result : Tinea pedis was estimated to be the second most common skin disease in the United States, after acne. Up to 15% of the U.S., population may have tinea pedis. Across Europe and East Asia, prevalence rates reach 20 %. Methods: The Complete history taking regarding: age, sex, occupation, residency, history of diabetes and diabetic profile (fasting blood sugar and post prandial).and Clinical examination of the feet Aim of the study : The aim of this work was to study the clinical features and causative fungi of tinea pedis in diabetic and non-diabetic patients Conclusion : Tinea pedis is more
... Show MorePollen morphology characterization is an important field in taxonomy. This study aims to identify and characterize the pollen morphology for fourteen species from subfamily Caesalpiniodeae (Fabaceae). The results showed the similarity of all species pollen in terms of being monad and tri,zono-colporate type, and each Ceratonia siliqua and Senna occidentalis distinguished by having tetra,zono-colporate pollen as well, and the results revealed the prevalence of reticulate configuration in most studies species, while Ceratonia siliqua characterized by striates configuration, Cassia fistula distinguished by verrrucate-gemmate wall, and Senna species by verrrucate- perforate, as for the shape, showed a discrepancy in the general shape fr
... Show MoreThe semantic analysis is characterized by its ability to describe the communicative pattern and its high efficiency in questioning its semantic manifestations and its deliberative purposes, which helped to understand the symbolic, contextual and cultural manifestations of the structure of the pattern, whether verbal or nonverbal. In order to highlight the role of the semiautomatic approach and its application to a sample of slogans collected from "media, social networking sites, in-kind views, media institutions, etc." to study the components and analyze the contents and highlight the signs. His boat logo is not just uttered as a linguistic transmission of a message, but as a political Tghieria actually . For example, the slogan "People Wan
... Show MoreCompetencies topic in general , and Administrative competencies in specific, are considered as important subject in the contemporary administrative literature in all countries as well as in public and privet Organizations. For this reason, we have need to study those competencies in many Iraqi Organizations.
Two Organizations wer chosen for this research one of them is the Institution of taxation, and the other is the General company of Electric the data and information related to the research have been collected by desined questioner which has been given to a sample of (50) persions divided eqully between the two maintioned organizations.
The results of the study had differences
... Show MoreIn this research, new series of Furo-2-quinolone [FQ] compounds have been synthesized. These novel [FQ] compounds were prepared from coumarin derivatives (Furocoumarins: psoralen and isopsoralen).Identifications of these FQ compounds were performed by using infrared spectrum (I.R), Ultraviolet spectrum (U.V) and Nuclear Magnetic Resonance spectrum (H1-NMR) besides some physical data. The cytotoxic screening involves ;using HEP-2 cell line which gave differential responses against tested compounds : 4,6 Dimethyl furo[2, 3-g] coumarin (C1), 1-(2`, 4`, Dimethoxy benzylideneimino)-2,6-dimethyl Furo [2, 3-g] quinoline-2-one (C3) and the angular psoralen of the same derivative
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