Chinyerum Opuwari
2Department of Pre-Clinical Sciences, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Limpopo, Sovenga, South Africa 3Department of Medical Biosciences, Faculty of Natural Sciences, University of the Western Cape, Bellville, South Africa
Title: Effects of Aspalathus linearis (rooibos) on sperm from infertile men in vitro
Biography
Biography: Chinyerum Opuwari
Abstract
Aspalathus linearis, commonly referred to as rooibos, is indigenous to the Cederberg region in the Western Cape Province of South Africa. It is usually produced as unfermented and fermented tea. Previous studies demonstrated improved sperm parameters such as concentration, motility and viability in male rats owing to its antioxidant property. This study aims to investigate the effects of unfermented and fermented rooibos in proven infertile men in vitro.
A total of 50 semen samples were collected after 3-5 days of abstinence from patients attending the infertility clinics of Tygerberg Hospital, Tygerberg, South Africa, and Vincent Palotti Hospital, Pinelands, South Africa, respectively. After liquefaction, semen was washed with HTF-BSA (1:5), centrifuged for 10 minutes at 500 xg and exposed to aqueous extract of unfermented (0, 0.15, 1.5, 15 and 150 μg/ml) and fermented rooibos (0, 0.10, 1, 10 and 100 μg/ml) for 1h at 37ºC. Thereafter, sperm parameters such as motility, vitality, mitochondrial membrane potential (MMP), ROS production, capacitation and acrosome reaction were analyzed.
Our results showed no effect of the extract at any of the concentrations used on the respective sperm parameters. In conclusion, both, fermented and unfermented rooibos has no direct effect on the human sperm in vitro. Hence, the positive effect that was seen in previous studies was rather due to the systemic antioxidant effect on the male reproductive system in vivo.