Abstract
Abstract Background Fish, a widely claimed healthy food for humans, could also pose problems to health due to accumulation of pollutants, especially heavy metals and pesticides. Since the world’s fish stocks are limited due to overfishing, degraded freshwater, and pollution from various sources, the government proposed farmed fish which is one of the fastest growing food production sectors as an alternative. The objective of this study was to investigate the effects of tilapia or Mugil cephalus fish diets obtained from polluted areas on male reproductive hormones and prolactin. A total of 80 male Wister albino rats having an average weight of 130–150 g at the beginning of the experiment were used. They were divided into control group and seven treated groups which received the following doses that increased monthly according to the increase in rat body weight (b.w.). The treated groups received 200 g/70 kg human b.w. which is equivalent to 0.4 g/140 g rat b.w., 0.63 g/220 g rat b.w., and 0.83 g/291 g rat b.w. of tilapia fish (wild and farmed freshwater and brackish water) or Mugil cephalus fish (farmed freshwater and brackish water and wild marine water) daily for 3 months then were left on AIN-93M diet and purified water ad libitum. Results The present results demonstrated that tilapia and Mugil cephalus fish diets caused decrease in serum total testosterone, follicle-stimulating hormone, luteinizing hormone, and sperm count, while sperm abnormalities significantly increased. Also, significant elevation of serum prolactin was observed in male rats fed with the same diets except wild brackish water tilapia fish and farmed freshwater and brackish water Mugil cephalus fish diets which showed a decrease. However, tilapia and Mugil cephalus fish diets had no effect on serum 17β-estradiol. The histopathological studies confirmed biochemical data as less dense packing of spermatogenic cell of the seminiferous tubules with reduction in the number of sperms in lumen of the epididymal tubules. Conclusions These results may indicate that consumption of tilapia and Mugil cephalus fish diets from polluted areas has adverse effects on male reproductive hormones and prolactin in male albino rats.