Exogenous Testosterone and Vitamin E Ameliorates Diabetes-induced Necrosis of the Pancreas, Lipid and Testicular Disorders in Male Wistar Rats

Aims: To investigate the effect of combined administration of testosterone and vitamin E on diabetes-induced testicular dysfunctions and dyslipidemia in male Wistar rats.

Place and Duration of Study: Applied and Environmental Physiology Unit, Physiology Department, University of Ibadan, Nigeria, September, 2013 to January, 2014.

Study Design and Methodology: Fifty male Wistar rats (150-200 g) were randomly divided into ten groups of 5 animals: normal control (NC), normal-vit.E treated (NVE), normal-testosterone treated (NT), normal-vit.E+testosterone treated (NVET), diabetic-untreated (DU), diabetic-vit.E treated (DVE), diabetic-testosterone treated (DT), diabetic-vit.E + testosterone treated (DVET), diabetic-insulin treated (DI), and diabetic-glibenclamide treated (DG). Diabetes was induced with a single intraperitoneal injection of 120 mg/kg alloxan monohydrate. Rats with sustained blood glucose of ≥ 250 mg/dl were selected as diabetic. Blood glucose was measured using glucose/oxidase principle. Animals were treated for 14 days and by day 15, blood was collected from the retro-orbital plexus for serum lipid analysis. Testes, epididymis and pancreas were excised and caudal epididymal fluid was analyzed for spermatogenic indices while testes and pancreas were processed for histological evaluation. Data were expressed as mean±SEM and statistical analysis performed using Student's unpaired t test, one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA). Level of significance is P = .05.

Results: The DVET showed significant reduction in serum TC (103.27±12.76), TG (76.25±9.79), VLDLc (15.25±1.96) and LDLc (69.70±14.74) compared with DU (188.67±9.97), (166.75±5.16), (33.55±1.12) and (141.16±11.06) respectively while significant increase was observed in DVET sperm count (59.60±10.31), sperm motility (74.00±2.19) and HDLc (18.31±2.22) compared with DU (25.20±3.99), (66.00±2.19) and (9.70±1.49) respectively.

Conclusion: Combined administration of vit. E and testosterone ameliorates diabetes–induced dyslipidaemia, beta cells necrosis, reduced sperm count and motility in male Wistar rats.