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 morphological description and histological structure of Gallbladder in the adult local chicken bird. The morphological description and histological structure of the Gallbladder in the local chicken Gallus gallus domesticus found in the form of a cystic, spindle or pear-shaped, dark green color, located within the visceral abdominal side of the right lobe of the liver, histologically it was found that its wall consisted of three tunicae. The first tunica is mucosa which consists of an epithelial lining layer and lamina propria layer, while the muscularis mucosa was missing. The second tunica is musclaris, which is composed of smooth circularly arranged muscle fibers, and the third tunica is serosa o
... Show MoreThe objective of this study was to investigate the morphological description and histological structure of adrenal gland in Iraqi black partridge Francolinus francolinus from Iraqi environment. Twenty adult healthy birds (male and female) were used in present study. They were measured and adrenal glands were removed, measured and fixed by 10% formalin and formalin and chromate fixative then stained with rotein histochemical stain (Harris hematoxylin and eosin stain (H&E), periodic acid Schiff (PAS), Azan and Mallory stain). The partridge had a small couple of adrenal glands of yellow colour they are located in abdominal cavity nearby the margin of superior kidney lobe. These are small, ovoid glands lying just cranial to the kidneys a
... Show MoreIn this study, the consequences of treatment with brake pad particles on kidney and spleen were evaluatedthrough microscopic anatomy sections for 60 male albino mice. The animals were divided into six groups, the first three groups (A,B,C) were exposed to brake pad particles depending on periods of exposure (4, 8, and 12weeks, respectively), while the other three groups were control groups,designated asF, which were exposed to laboratory fresh air only. A special locally-designed inhalation chamber was used to expose the animals. The exposure dose to brake pad particles (total suspended particles) was 2.228 µg/m³ for 30 min/day, 5 days/week,4, 8 and 12 weeks.The statistical analysis showed that the weights of organs for both
... Show MoreBackground: Contact between implant material and bones must be strong and fast creation, to fulfill these properties appropriate surface modifications must apply on used implants. In this contribution; double surface modifications are applied on Ti-6Al-4V alloy to accelerate osseointegration. Materials and methods: Anodic process is utilized to create titania nanotubes (TNTs) on the screws made from Ti-6Al-4V alloy. These implants were coated with nano ZrO2 particles. Second modification was annealing anodized screws at 8000C, and implanted in tibiae of nine adult New Zealand white rabbits. Results: Physical and histological consequences of two surface modifications on Ti-6Al-4V alloy screws were studied. Scanning electron microscope (SEM)
... Show MoreCrime is a threat to any nation’s security administration and jurisdiction. Therefore, crime analysis becomes increasingly important because it assigns the time and place based on the collected spatial and temporal data. However, old techniques, such as paperwork, investigative judges, and statistical analysis, are not efficient enough to predict the accurate time and location where the crime had taken place. But when machine learning and data mining methods were deployed in crime analysis, crime analysis and predication accuracy increased dramatically. In this study, various types of criminal analysis and prediction using several machine learning and data mining techniques, based o
Background: Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) characterized by insulin resistance (IR) and progressive decline in functional beta (β) cell mass partially due to increased β cell apoptosis rate. Pancreatic stone protein /regenerating protein (PSP/reg) is produced mainly by the pancreas and elevated drastically during pancreatic disorder. Beta cells are experiencing apoptosis that stimulate the expression of PSP/reg gene in surviving neighboring cells, and that PSP/reg protein is subsequently secreted from these cells which could play a role in their regeneration.
Objectives: To analyze serum levels of PSP/reg protein in T2DM patients and evaluate its correlation with the microvasc
... Show MoreThe world's population growth and the increasing demand for new infrastructure facilities and buildings , present us with the vision of a higher resources consumption, specially in the form of more durable concrete such as High Performance Concrete (HPC) . Moreover , the growth of the world pollution by plastic waste has been tremendous. The aim of this research is to investigate the change in mechanical properties of HPC with added waste plastics in concrete. For this purpose 2.5%, 5% and 7.5% in volume of natural fine aggregate in the HPC mixes were replaced by an equal volume of Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) waste , got by shredded PET bottles. The mechanical propert
... Show MoreWaste materials might be utilized in various applications, such as sustainable roller compacted concrete pavements (RCCP), to lessen the negative environmental consequences of construction waste. The impacts of utilizing (brick, thermostone, granite, and ceramic) powders on the mechanical characteristics of RCCP are investigated in this study. To achieve this, the waste materials were crushed, grounded, and blended before being utilized as filler in the RCCP. After the mixes were prepared, compressive strength, splitting tensile strength, flexural strength, water absorption, density, and porosity were all determined. According to the research results, adding some of these powders, mainly brick and granite powder, enhances the mechanical
... Show MoreIn this paper we study the effect of adding Zinc Oxide powder (ZnO) at different ratios (10%,20%,30%,40%,50%) as particles and organic dyes rhodamine B(RhB), rohdamine 6G(Rh6G) and eosin(EO) are added at different doping ratios to polystyrene (PS), to form photosensitized(PS/ZnO/dye) composites, for samples were prepared as films by spin method. Photoconductive properties are investigated. For I-V characteristic measurements, the photocurrent (Iph) and dark current (Id) are generally increased in non linear behavior with increasing light intensity and applied voltage for all composites. The photocurrent goes decrease through its maximum value at high white light intensities or high voltage for 2.4*10-
... Show MoreOne hundred of dialysis patients' mean age ( 51.18±8.28) years and one hundred healthy control group , where carried out from different hospitals of Baghdad city , during the period between November /2012 until March/2013. Blood samples were collected before dialyzing for estimation the concentration of urea, creatinine, uric acid, random blood sugar , calcium and cholesterol by enzymatic method detected spectrophotometerically.
The aim of this study is to determine concentration of urea, creatinine, uric acid, RBS , calcium and cholesterol in hemodialysis patients in Baghdad . The results showed that there were highly significant increases (P<0.01) in the mean of creatinine ,
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