BACKGROUND

Ficus asperifolia (L) Hook. Ex Miq (Moraceae) fruits are used in Cameroonian traditional medicine to cure some cases of infertility in women. This study determines the mechanism of alleviating effect of the plant extracts on rat infertility induced by a high fat diet (HFD).

METHODS

Obesity was reached by feeding female rats with a HFD for 10 weeks. Vaginal smear was observed daily for 3 weeks after animals were obese. Then, 70 animals with abnormal estrus cyclicity were selected and partitioned into two sets of 35 animals. Each set was further divided into seven groups of five rats. These obese rats with disrupted estrus cyclicity were orally administered the aqueous and methanolic extracts (100 and 500 mg/kg), distilled water (10 mL/kg), 5% Tween 80 (10 mL/kg) or lutenyl (0.8 µg/kg) once a day for 1 week (set I) or 4 weeks (set II). Estrus cyclicity, body weight gain, hematocrit, lipid profile, ovarian, uterine and hepatic growth indices were determined at the end of each treatment.

RESULTS

HFD increased the body weight of the animals by 27% and disrupted the estrus cyclicity by 98.44%. Aqueous extract (100 mg/kg) of F. asperifolia given for 1 week corrected 40% of the irregular estrus cycle and this percentage increased to 80% as the treatment progressed to 4 weeks. F. asperifolia-treated obese rats (mostly with the aqueous extract at 100 mg/kg) showed a significant decrease (p<0.001) in the total plasma cholesterol and low density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol level and a significant increase (p<0.001) in high density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol. F. asperifolia has bioactive agents that may maintain conducive conditions for reproduction in obese female rats.

CONCLUSIONS

Our data support the anecdotal claims of F. asperifolia in folk medicine to cure some cases of infertility in women.