Impacts of <i>Stevia rebaudiana</i> leaf aqueous extract on Some Physiological Parameters and Fertility in Male Albino Mice

The objective of the work is to examine the impacts of Stevia leaf aqueous extract, after chronic administration (60 days), on some physiological aspects and fertility in male albino mice. .twenty-four adult e mice were categorized into four groups, each involving six animals. Three treatment groups were separately exposed to three respective concentrations of the extract (25, 50, and 100 mg/kg), he remainder is a control group. The animals were given daily oral doses of 0.1 ml/ 10 gm body weight of the group-respective extract concentration for 60 consecutive days. Several physiological and fertility-related parameters were tested based on the serum’s activities or levels of selected functional enzymes. Enzymatic activities of AST, ALT, and ALP were significantly elevated in animals that received treatments of 50 and 100 mg/kg compared to those that received 25 mg/kg and control doses. A similar elevation was observed in the average concentration of MDA, whereas those of CAT and GST were significantly reduced in all treated groups in the average concentrations of the enzymes CAT and GST in all concentrations of Stevia extract, compared with the control groups. The serum levels of FSH, LH or ICSH, and T in response to all studied concentrations of stevia extract were significantly decreased. Also, our data indicated that the number of epididymal sperm was significantly decreased in the experimental animals, a result also observed in the average percentage of normal and deformed sperms. Morphological sperm examination demonstrated several forms of deformation in response to the leaf extract, where sperms with two tails, broken tails, and curled tails appeared, in addition to tailless sperms and those having cytoplasmic droplets. These results show consistency with the potentiality of Stevia aqueous extract in reducing fertility in male mice.