Effect of Probiotic Supplementation on Spermatozoa Quality in Male Wistar Rats Fed a High-Fat Diet

A high-fat diet is known to negatively impact reproductive efficiency due to the accumulation of free radicals in testicular tissue, leading to damage in the testes, Sertoli, and Leydig cells.This disruption affects the hypothalamus-pituitary-gonadal axis, which plays a critical role in spermatogenesis.Reducing saturated fat and total energy intake, along with probiotic supplementation, has been recommended to lower triglyceride levels in both humans and animals.This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of Lactobacillus sp. and Bacillus subtilis as probiotics in Wistar rats (Rattus norvegicus) subjected to a high-cholesterol diet.A total of 25 rats were divided into five treatment groups, with body weights ranging from 150-250g.Sperm morphology was assessed by analyzing the structural characteristics of 100 randomly selected spermatozoa stained with 0.05% eosin-Y.The sperm count analysis categorized sperm forms into normal and abnormal categories, including primary and secondary abnormalities, as well as sperm agglutination.A decline in motility was observed in the K+ group, which was given a high-fat diet, with values of 53.337.64 compared to the K-group with values of 831.75.Furthermore, the highest abnormality rates were recorded in the K+ group (11.674.93)compared to the K-group (4.671.15).However, after probiotic intervention, the KP3 group, which received a combination of Lactobacillus sp. and Bacillus subtilis, demonstrated the highest motility and the lowest abnormalities, indicating its potential in mitigating the adverse effects of a high-fat diet.