Studies on the Cytological, Biochemical and Reproductive Toxicity of St. John’s Wort after Chronic Treatment in Swiss Albino Mice

St John’s Wort (SJW, Hypericum perforatum), a popular dietary supplement is immensely used in treating a broad range of psychiatric disorders. It is reported to possess both favorable and detrimental effects. Which are attributed to the active principles (hypericin and hyperforin) of SJW. Nevertheless, there is dearth of reports on toxicity of SJW. In view of the traditional significance of SJW, its immense use and a paucity of literature, it was found worthwhile to investigate its effect on (1) cytogenetic analysis of testicular chromosomes (2) morphology of sperms (3) dominant lethal assay (4) biochemical analysis of proteins, nucleic acids, MDA and NP-SH in the testes and (5) pituitary-gonadal hormones in plasma. The procedure included the oral treatment of mice with different doses (95, 190 and 380 mg/kg/day) of SJW for 90 days. The treatment caused significant changes in chromosomal aberrations, morphology of different types of sperms, rate of pregnancy and pre-implantation loss. However, the post-implantation losses were not affected significantly. Both prolactin and testosterone levels were found to increase at the highest dose, while the medium dose affected prolactin levels only. The nucleic acid concentration was depleted in the testicular cells. These changes might be attributed to oxidant activity as revealed by an increase in the concentrations of MDA and a decrease of NP-SH levels in testicular cells observed in the present study. The observed effects appears to be related to mutagenic and oxidant activity of terpenes, tannins, quercetin and flavonoids present in SJW.