Abstract

ABSTRACT

A lot of men in the south-eastern part of Nigeria consume bread fruit both for its nutritional benefits as well as other ethnomedicinal purposes. This study is aimed to evaluate the effect of ethanol extract of Treculia africana seeds on testosterone, thyroid stimulating hormone & prolactin in male wistar rats. A total of 20 male wistar rats weighing between 160-200g were selected randomly into four groups of five rats each. The animals were given standard finisher mash and tap water twice daily. group 1 (control) received 5ml of distilled water. Groups 2, 3 and 4 (test groups) were administered 250, 300 and 350 mg/kg body weight of ethanoic extract of Treculia africana seeds respectively. Administration of extract was done for 10days, and on the 11th day the animals were sacrificed, blood samples were collected for analysis. Findings revealed that there is a significant increase in the mean values of testosterone levels at low, medium, and high dosages when compared with control. Again, there was significant increase in experimental groups that received medium and high dosages of ethanoic extract of Treculia africana. Also, the serum levels of prolactin were observed to be increased significantly in medium and high dose and decrease in low dose when compared to the control. The experimental group that received the medium dose of the ethanoic extract of treculia africana showed more increase than the low and high doses respectively. The data was analyzed with SPSS version 22, and a p value of (p?0.05) was considered significant.