Abstract:
The effects of oral administration of varied doses of monosodium glutamate (MSG) on the morphology of the testes and cauda epididymal sperm reserves of rats were studied using 28 four-week-old (young) male Sprague-Dawley rats and 28 twelve-week-old (adult) male Sprague-Dawley rats. Increasing doses (1 mg/g body mass, 2 mg/g body mass, and 4 mg/g body mass) of a 40% aqueous solution of monosodium glutamate were administered to the male Sprague-Dawley rats every 48 hours for 6 weeks, using a rat gavage needle. The results showed that age variation did not infl uence the effect of MSG on the parameters studied in male rats. There
was a signifi cant reduction in the cauda epididymal sperm reserves (P<0.05) and the serum testosterone levels (P<0.05) of the rats that received monosodium glutamate relative to the control rats. The histomorphology of the testes of the rats that were given monosodium glutamate did not differ from those of the rats in the control group. No overt pathological lesions were seen in the testicular sections. These observations suggest that monosodium glutamate may have adversely affected spermatogenesis by disrupting the hypothalamic-pituitarytestis
regulatory axis, and not through any direct toxic effect on the testis.
