Effect of rosmarinic acid on sexual behavior in diabetic male rats

One of the disorders that are caused by diabetes disease is reproductive problem, infertility and decrease libido. Antioxidants have essential effect on diabetes as enhanced oxidative stress, and changes in antioxidant capacity play an important role in the pathogenesis of chronic diabetes mellitus. So, the aim of this work was to study antioxidant effect of rosmarinic acid on sexual behavior of the diabetic rats. Rosmarinic acid from the plants reduced superoxide radicals from xanthine oxidase and inhibited cyclooxygenase I and II enzymes. Eighty Wistar male and female rats were selected for this research, male rats (n = 40) were allocated into four groups, control group (n = 10), rosmarinic acid (Ro) treated group that received 5 mg/rat (gavage) (n = 10) and diabetic group that received streptozotocin in dose of 55 mg/kg (IP) streptozotocin (STZ) (n = 20) which was subdivided to two groups of 10; STZ group and treatment group. Treatment group received  55 mg/kg body weight via intraperitoneal injection (IP) STZ plus 5 mg/rat Ro daily for 4 weeks, respectively; however, the control group just received an equal volume of  distilled water daily (gavage). Diabetes was induced by a single (IP) injection of streptozotocin (55 mg/kg). On the 28th day of research, forty female rats prepared to sexual stimulation and on the 30th day, they were caged with male rats. Level of sexual behavior (according video observation) and testosterone significantly increased in groups that received Ro, in comparison to the whole groups (P < 0.05). At the end of the study 5 ml of blood samples were collected for measurement of testosterone levels of male rats in control and treated groups. We could conclude that the treatment with rosmarinic acid have significantly preventive and curative effect on diabetic disorder in rats.   Key words: Diabetic, rosmarinic acid, streptozotocin, sexual behavior, testosterone.