High-Dose Testosterone Propionate Treatment Reverses the Effects of Endurance Training on Myocardial Antioxidant Defenses in Adolescent Male Rats

This study was aimed at evaluation of changes in activities of selected antioxidant enzymes (superoxide dismutase, catalase, glutathione peroxidase, and glutathione reductase) and contents of key nonenzymatic antioxidants (glutathione, protein thiol groups, and α- and γ-tocopherols) in the left heart ventricle of young male Wistar rats subjected to endurance training (treadmill running, 1 h daily, 5 days a week, for 6 weeks) or/and testosterone propionate treatment (8 or 80 mg/kg body weight, intramuscularly, once a week, for 6 weeks) during adolescence. The training alone increased the activities of key antioxidant enzymes, but lowered the pool of nonenzymatic antioxidants and enhanced myocardial oxidative stress as evidenced by elevation of the lipid peroxidation biomarker malondialdehyde. The lower-dose testosterone treatment showed mixed effects on the individual components of the antioxidant defense system, but markedly enhanced lipid peroxidation. The higher-dose testosterone treatment decreased the activities of the antioxidant enzymes, lowered the contents of the nonenzymatic antioxidants, except for that of γ-tocopherol, reversed the effect of endurance training on the antioxidant enzymes activities, and enhanced lipid peroxidation more than the lower-dose treatment. These data demonstrate the potential risk to cardiac health from exogenous androgen use, either alone or in combination with endurance training, in adolescents

Changes in fatty acid, tocopherol and xanthophyll contents during the development of Tunisian-grown pecan nuts

Among oil compounds, fatty acids, tocopherols and xanthophylls (lutein and zeaxanthin) are of special interest due to their nutritional properties. The identification and quantification of these compounds in pecan nuts (Carya illinoinensis) could therefore be very useful to produce functional foods rich in compounds of this type. This paper reports studies on their accumulation and the effect of ripening on the content of these high value-added compounds. The total lipid content increased during the ripening. Saturated and polyunsaturated fatty acids decreased significantly, whereas, monounsaturated fatty acids increased during the ripening of pecan nut fruit. Maximum levels of total tocopherol (279.53 mg/kg oil) and xanthophyll (6.18 mg/kg oil) were detected at 20th weeks after the flowering date. These amounts decreased gradually as ripening advances. The early stages of pecan ripening seem to have nutritional and pharmaceutical interests. These results may be useful for evaluating the pecan nut quality and determining the optimal period when the pecans accumulated the maximum of these nutritional and healthy compounds