protective effect of royal jelly on in vitro fertilization (ivf) in male mice treated with oxymetholone

objective: this study aimed to investigate the effects of royal jelly (rj) on catalase, total antioxidant capacity and embryo development in adult mice treated with oxymetholone (oxm). materials and methods: in this exprimental study, 32 male and 96 female adult naval medical research institute (nmri) mice (7-9 weeks of age) with a ratio of 1:3 for fertilization purposes were randomly divided into 4 groups as follows: i. control group (n=8) receiving 0.1 ml/mice saline daily by gavage for 30 day, ii. rj group (n=8) treated with rj at a dose of 100 mg/kg daily by gavage for 30 days, iii. oxm group (n=8) receiving oxm at the dose of 5 mg/kg daily by gavage for 30 days and iv. rj+oxm group (n=8) receiving rj at the dose of 100 mg/kg daily by gavage concomitant with 100 mg/kg oxm administration for 30 days. results: analysis revealed a significant reduction in catalase, total antioxidant, as well as embryo development in oxm group (p<0.05). however, rj group showed a salient recovery in the all of the above mentioned parameters and embryo toxicity. conclusion: the results of this study indicated a partially protective effect of rj against oxm-induced embryo toxicity.