Percentage Fertility of Female Wistar Rats Treated with Extracts of Persea americana

Abstract

The purpose of this research study was to investigate the effects of ethanolic stem bark extract of Persea americana on some reproductive parameters of female Wistar rats. In this study, female Wistar rats were randomly assigned into three (3) groups of 5 rats each. The control group (Group 1) was given distilled water. Group 2 received 200mg/kg of the extract and group 3 received 400mg/kg of the extract daily for a period of 21 days following acclimatization. The female rats were cohabited with males in the ratio 2:1 (M:F) for 10 days. Blood samples were collected and some tissues harvested at sacrifice. The statistical analysis was done using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) test was used to compare groups followed by post-hoc testing to determine whether there were significant differences between the control and treatment groups. P-value less than 0.05 was considered significant and result presented as Mean±SEM. The result showed that the extract of Persea americana caused stimulatory effect on anterior pituitary synthesis of luteinizing hormone (LH) and follicle stimulating hormone (FSH) and may have also caused changes in the gonads leading to decreased gonadal hormone synthesis (estrogen and progesterone). The percentage fertility of the female Wistar rats was significantly reduced suggesting that the stem bark extract of Persea americana possess antifertility effects.