The protective effect of selenium on spermatogenesis in diabetic rats The aim of this study is to investigate the pathological changes in testes due to diabetes mellitus with respect to spermatogenesis and whether selenium has a protective role on these or not.

Fourteen streptozotocin-induced diabetic and 15 non-diabetic wistar rats (200-250 gr) were included to the study. Sodium selenate was administered to 7 rats in diabetic group and 8 in non-diabetic group. At the end of 12 weeks, animals were sacrificed and the testes were evaluated with respect to volume and histopathological changes. While there was an evident hypospermatogesis in diabetic group with no treatment, sparmatogenetic activite was found similar with controls in diabetic group treated with sodium selenate.

As a conclusion, our results revealed that diabetes melitus causes an evident hypospermatogenesis and treatment of selenium may have a protective role on spermatogenesis .