The effect of intake of palm wine on body weight and testicular microarchitecture in adult wistar rats

Background: The growing concerns about male reproductive dysfunction as well as obesity have necessitated the present study. Objective: The aim of this research was to investigate the effect of intake of palm wine on body weight, testis weight and microarchitecture of the testis in adult Wistar rats. Materials and Methods: Ten mature male rats weighing between 101 g and 180 g were assigned into two groups of A and B, consisting of five animals each that all had access to rat chow and water ad libitum. Fresh undiluted palm wine gotten as sap (juice) from oil palm trees was collected from a local palm wine tapper at every three days interval and often conserved in a refrigerator after every use before being replaced with a fresh collection on the 4th day. While group A served as control, group B animals were orally administered with 10ml/kg body weight per day of the palm wine for twenty-one days. The G&G(R) Electronic Scale (JJ1000 Capacity) was the instrument used for the assessment of the weight parameters. The analysis of variance was the statistical tool used to determine the weight differences between the two groups and P < 0.05 was taken as the statistically significant value; with the data presented as Mean ± SEM. Results: The outcome of the research on weight parameters showed non significant changes as the means for the initial and final body weights in group A were 108 g and 136 g ± 0.28 while those in group B were 138 g and 165 g ± 0.29 respectively. The testis mean weight of group A animals was 3.3 g ± 0.05 while that of group B was 3.8 g ± 0.07. Following routine histological processing, the micro-anatomic studies of testicular tissue samples from group B revealed focal disordered arrangement of sperm–producing cells. Conclusion: The findings therefore show that regular intake of fermented palm sap popularly known as palm wine may not significantly affect body weight nor testis weight, but can gradually distort testicular tissue architecture with abnormally structured cells.