Reproductive Toxicity of Bisphenol A (BPA) in Albino Rats

Abstract

This study evaluates the effect of oral administration of BPA on male reproductive parameters and female reproductive hormones. Male and female rats were evenly distributed to get 6 groups (5 rats per group) the first three groups were all male rats while the remaining three groups were female rats. BPA doses of 50 and 250mg/kg body weight were administered weekly to groups II, III, V and VI respectively while groups I and IV served as vehicle control. After 6 weeks of exposure, epididymis and blood samples were collected for semen and biochemical analysis. The parameters analysed include; actively motile sperm cells, dead cells, total sperm count, sluggishly motile cells, abnormal cells, viable cells, estradiol, prolactin and progesterone. The reproductive studies on male rats revealed that there was a significant reduction (p<0.05) in the percentage of actively motile sperm cells (93.33 -72.33), total sperm count 600.00% - 327.67%, while viable cells counts ranged from 82.67% to 67.33%. Dead sperm cells increased significantly from the control group (9.00%) to group 3 (19.67%), abnormal cells increased from the control at (22.00%) to group 3 (35.33%) while sluggishly motile cells increased in the same sequence (5.67% to 19.00%). Results on the female reproductive hormones showed that there was a steady reduction sequence from the control group to BPA-treated groups (group 3) at (p<0.05) in all parameters; with estradiol (84.00 to 68.00), prolactin (5.84 to 0.34) and progesterone (43.85 to 23.11). Results from this study indicate that exposure to BPA resulted in insidious alteration in female reproductive hormones and can also induce impotency in males.