Protective Effect of Royal Jelly on In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) in Male Mice Treated with Oxymetholone.

ObjectiveThis study aimed to investigate the effects of royal jelly (RJ) on catalase, total antioxidant capacity and embryo development in adult mice treated with oxymetholone (OXM).Materials and methodsIn this exprimental study, 32 male and 96 female adult Naval Medical Research Institute (NMRI) mice (7-9 weeks of age) with a ratio of 1:3 for fertili- zation purposes were randomly divided into 4 groups as follows: i. Control group (n=8) receiving 0.1 ml/mice saline daily by gavage for 30 day, ii. RJ group (n=8) treated with RJ at a dose of 100 mg/kg daily by gavage for 30 days, iii. OXM group (n=8) receiving OXM at the dose of 5 mg/kg daily by gavage for 30 days and iv. RJ+OXM group (n=8) receiving RJ at the dose of 100 mg/kg daily by gavage concomitant with 100 mg/kg OXM adminis- tration for 30 days.ResultsAnalysis revealed a significant reduction in catalase, total antioxidant, as well as embryo development in OXM group (P<0.05). However, RJ group showed a salient recovery in the all of the above mentioned parameters and embryo toxicity.ConclusionThe results of this study indicated a partially protective effect of RJ against OXM-induced embryo toxicity.