EFFECT OF LONG PERIOD OF UNDERNUTRITION ON THE STRUCTURE AND HISTOCHEMISTRY

20 adult male albino rats with an average weight 35 gm were subjected to a long period of undernutrition by feeding them in restricted amount (30% normal food intake) for 40 days. The testes were then examined histologically and
contents and also for alkaline histochemically for carbohydrates, lipid phosphatase activity. Histologically there was diminution in the diameters of the seminiferous tubules with irregularities of their outlines. Some tubules
showed hypoplasia with normal cells and other tubules were heavily damaged.

UNDERNUTRITION AND STRUCTURE OF RAT TESTIS
Fibrosis was appeared in the form of thickening of the testicular capsule, basement membranes of the tubules with an increase in the reticular fibers of the interstitial connective tissue and around the blood capillaries which showed a marked increase in number. Histochemically, carbohydrates were difficult to be demonstrated except some disrupted heads of the old spermatids which showed intense reaction. Lipid contents were increased in the interstitial cells. But there was few lipid droplets in the grossly vacuolated cytoplasm of the spermatogonia and Sertoli cells. There was an increase in the alkaline phasphatase activity of young spermatids and spermatocytes and this activity resembled more or less that of the control group. It could be concluded that undernutrition for a long time produced histological and histochemical changes in the rat testes such changes were the causative factors which produce inhibition in the normal spermatogenic functions.