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
Heat island is known as the increases in air temperature through large and industrial cities compared to surrounding rural areas. In this study, remote sensing technology is used to monitor and track thermal variations within the city center of Baghdad through Landsat satellite images and for the period from 2000 to 2015. Several processors and treatments were applied on these images using GIS 10.6 and ERDAS 2014, such as image correction and extraction, supervised classification, and selection of training samples. Urban areas detection was resulted from the supervised classification linked to the temperature readings of the surface taken from the thermal bands of satellite images. The results showed that the surface temperature of the c
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Iron deficiency is considered as a common problem facing the general world population. In the current research, experiments were conducted to evaluate the effects of aqueous extracts of Acacia senegal (Gum Arabic, GA), Spinacia oleracea (spinach), Zea mays (corn), and Capsicum annuum (red chili pepper) on iron and ferritin levels in rats. Vitamin C and fructose levels were first estimated in these plants by using High-Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC). The results showed that the GA extract contained the highest level of fructose (853 mg.L-1), followed by red chili pepper (635 mg.L-1), corn (521 mg.L-1), and spinach (271 mg.L-1
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The aim of this paper is to investigate the effects of Nd:YAG laser shock processing (LSP) on micro-hardness and surface roughness of 86400Cu-Zn alloy. X-ray fluorescence technique was used to analyze the chemical composition of this alloy. LSP treatment was performed with a Q-switched Nd: YAG laser with a wavelength of 1064 nm. The results show that laser shock processing can significantly increase. The micro-hardness and surface roughness of the LSP-treated sample. Vickers diamond indenter was used to measure the micro-hardness of all samples with different laser pulse energy and the different number of laser pulses. It is found that the metal hardness can be significantly increased to more than 80% by increasing the laser energy and t
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A study on solvent extraction of Tellurium with Anthranilic acid in
water has been made. The effect of different parameters such as type of medium, time of equilibration, concentration of metal ion, solvent polarity and effect of anions and catins distribution ratio of tellrim (IV) were evaluated. The stoichometric ratio of the extracted species is determined by using two methods suh as slope analysis and mole ratio method and found to be (M: L) (1:4). The instability constant of complex was calculated as well.
A new Schiff base o-hydroxybenzylidene-1-phenyl-2,3-dimethyl-4-amino-3-pyrazolin-5-on (HL) ,have been prepared and characterization.(HL) has been used as a chelating ligand to prepare a number of metal complexes VO(II) ,Cr(III) ,Mn(II),Fe(II),Hg(II) and UO2(II) .and mixed ligands complexes have been prepared between o-hydroxybenzylidene-1-phenyl-2,3-dimethyl-4-amino-3-pyrazolin-5-on and 8- hydroxy quinoline with VO(II),Zn(II),Cd(II), Hg(II) and UO2(II) the prepared complexes were isolated and characterized by (FT-IR)and (UV-Vis) spectroscopy. Elemental analysis (C.H.N) Chloride contents, Flame atomic absorption technique. in addition to magnetic susceptibility and conductivity measurement. Molar ratio measurement in solution gave comparabl
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The present study was conducted using 15 adult male Swiss albino mice (weighing 35-45g). They were equally divided into three experimental groups. The first group was only given water as control during experimentation period (28days). Both of the second and third groups of mice were daily given a subcutaneous injection of cadmium as cadmium chloride (CdCl2) at a dose of 2mg and 4 mg Cd/Kg body weight respectively. The examination of the histological sections of the second experimental group of mice showed abundant histological changes in the hepatocytes such as increased size, presence of spaces and dense appearance of the cytoplasm, whereas these changes were more abundant in the hepatocytes of the third experimental group of mice in co
... Show MoreRheumatoid arthritis is an autoimmune diseasecharacterized by chronic inflammationthat affects joints and cartilage. Bone complications such asRA-relatedosteoporosis are one of the most extra-articular manifestations. Many inflammatory mediators are released during RA disease pathophysiology; these mediators stimulate osteoclast genesis of bone by direct effects on RANKL and OPG. The study aimedto measure RANKL, OPG in RA patients treated with Etanercept only and other groups treated with Methotrexate onlyat baseline and after three months to evaluate bone state. An observational case-control prospective study was done on 30 RA patients who received MTX, 30 RA patients who received ETN, and 30 healthy,age-matched control groups. The
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This study was carried out to determine the effects of NaCl (0.00, 50, 100, 150, 180 or 200) mM and two different types of mutagens chemical mutagen ethyl methyl sulphonate (EMS) at 0.5% and physical mutagen UV-B irradiation (40 min time exposure), on mitotic division in two Iraqi rice genotypes Amber 33 (A33) and Amber Baghdad (AB). Different concentrations of NaCl were used. Mitotic index (MI %) was decreased significantly by increasing NaCl concentration, however the highest mitotic index was recorded in mutated genotypes with EMS and UV-B. Different abnormal chromosomes were noticed in mutated plants. Results showed high percentage of abnormal chromosomes in EMS mutated genotypes. In addition no significant differences between genotypes
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In this paper, inelastic longitudinal electron scattering form factors C2 and C4
transitions have been studied in Ti 48,50
and Cr 52,54
nuclei with the aid of shell
model calculations. The core polarization transition density was evaluated by
adopting the shape of Tassie model togther with the derived form of the ground state
two-body charge density distributions (2BCDD's). The following transitions have
been investigated; 0 2 2 2 1 1
and 0 2 4 2 1 1
of Ti 48 , 0 3 2 3 1 1
and
0 3 4 3 1 1
of Ti 50 , 0 2 2 2 1 1
and 0 2 4 2 1 1
of Cr 52 and
0 3 2 3 1 1
and 0 3 4 3 1 1
of Cr 54 nuclei. It is fou
Three isolates of P. aeruginosa were isolated from burnt patients. The ability of these isolates for adhesion and formation of slime layer were tested, the result showed that all isolates were able to adherence on the smooth surface. The sensitivity of P. aeruginosa isolates for antibiotics were tested , all isolates were sensitive to Gentamycin, Piperacillin and Amikacin Ciprofloxacin, and resist to Tetracyclin, Amoxicillin, Cephalexine , Ceftriaxone. Ciprofloxacin and Amikacin were found effective against P. aeruginosa isolates with MIC values of 3.8 μg/ ml for Ciprofloxacin and 0.244 μg/ ml for Amikacin The antibacterial effect of Different concentrations of Aloe
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