Abstract
Ginkgo biloba extract is a widely consumed phytotherapic used mainly in the treatment of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, and it has also been employed to treat erectile dysfunction and as an aphrodisiac. This work was aimed at evaluating its effect on sperm quality, serum testosterone concentration and on the histometric analysis of the testes from adult male Wistar rats. Three-month-old Wistar rats were treated with distilled water (control group) and the aqueous extract of Ginkgo biloba at the dose levels of 3.5 (GBE 3.5); 7.0 (GBE 7.0) and 14.0 mg/kg (GBE 14.0), once daily, for 56 consecutive days. Counting and morphological evaluation of sperm collected from cauda epidydimis were analyzed. Histometric measures of the testes were also taken. This work shows that adult Wistar rats exposed to Ginkgo biloba presented histometric alteration in the volume of the Leydig cells and this finding suggests a possible functional deficit in these cells. Key words: Ginkgo biloba, phytotherapy, rats, sperm, testes, toxicity.
Highlights
The extract of Ginkgo biloba (GBE) is one of the most consumed phytotherapics in the world, being used to treat dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, and to ameliorate peripheral blood flow (Oken et al, 1998; Mar and Bent, 1999; Stromgaard and Nakanishi, 2004)
License 4.0 International License male fertility (Kamal et al, 2003), not many repots are related to the effect of G. biloba extract
Alterations in the gamete concentration, vitality and morphology were not observed in this study, suggesting that the extract did not exert a direct effect on the production and maturation of sperm
Summary
The extract of Ginkgo biloba (GBE) is one of the most consumed phytotherapics in the world, being used to treat dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, and to ameliorate peripheral blood flow (Oken et al, 1998; Mar and Bent, 1999; Stromgaard and Nakanishi, 2004). Other medicinal uses for GBE include treatment of erectile dysfunction as a result of chronic use of antidepressants (Kang et al, 2002; Mackay, 2004; Moyad et al, 2004; Wheatley, 2004; Tamler and Mechanick, 2007) and as an aphrodisiac (Malviya et al., 2011) which led to an increasing intake of the extract by men. AlYahya et al (2006), reported weight reduction of the cauda epidydimis and the prostate in addition to reduced levels of nucleic acids, low gestational index and increased preimplantation loss in Swiss mice treated with the extract. Elevated doses of GBE reduced sperm penetration in the zona pellucida of hamster oocytes (Ondrizek et al, 1999a) and inhibited human sperm motility (Ondrizek et al, 1999b)
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