Toxic effect of nicotine on sperm Morphology in adult male albino rats: Protective potential of Thymus vulgaris Aqueous Extract

Abstract

Smoking is one of the most problems that cause oxidative stress and affect the health of humans. That affected Fertility in males which nicotine has a toxic effect on spermatogenesis. Thyme extract is shown to have some beneficial effects such as antioxidant properties. Thus, this study aimed to evaluate the antagonistic ability of thyme extract against the toxic effect of the nicotine on epididymal sperm defects in male adult rats, there were divided into four groups;G1: normal saline, G 2: 0.6mg/kg nicotine, G 3: 0.5g/kg thyme extract, G4: 0.6 mg/kg nicotine and 0.5g/kg thyme extract, Treatments lasted for 28 days. Sperms morphology was assessed for fertility. It was significantly (P<0.05) increased in the nicotine-treated group, compared with control (P<0.05). However, co-administration of nicotine with thyme extract significantly decreased the values of sperm defects as compared to that observed in nicotine group (P<0.05). The findings suggest that the thyme extract possibly ameliorates the deleterious effects of nicotine on some reproductive indices in male albino rats.