Thyroid Disruption and Infertility after Chronic Exposure to Mancozeb
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Date
2015-04-19
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Advances in Environmental Biology
Abstract
This work aims to highlight the toxic effects of mancozeb; polymeric complex of
manganese and zinc ethylene bis-dithiocarbamate, on the fertility and thyroid functions.
Male Wistar rats were treated orally with different doses of mancozeb: 250, 500 and
1000 mg/kg body weigh/ day for 8 weeks. The obtained results showed a highly
significant increase (p≤ 0.01) on thyroid absolute weight in the groups treated with 500
and 1000 mg/kg body weight/day respectively. However, testes absolute weight
witnessed a significant decrease (p≤ 0.05) in group treated with 500 mg/kg, this
decrease becomes very highly significant in the group treated with 1000 mg/kg/day.
The biochemical test revealed a significant increase of cholesterol and triglycerides
rates in the group treated with the highest dose. A highly significant increase of blood
glucose is also observed in the groups treated with 500 and 1000 mg /kg/day. Hormone
assays have shown a very highly significant decrease of thyroxine in all the groups
treated with different doses, while triiodothyronine concentration witnessed a very
highly significant decrease only in the group treated with 1000 mg/kg/day. Finally, the
studying of biological characters of the spermatozoa showed a highly significant and
very highly significant decrease in the concentration of spermatozoa and their mobility
in rats treated with 500 and 1000 mg/kg/day respectively. In conclusion, it seems that
long term exposure to mancozeb is associated to hypothyroidism by decreasing FT4
and FT3 and has adverse effects on testes function leading to physiological impairment.