## 4 Discussion  
Exposure to metals has been described among the numerous factors involved in fertility failures, and cadmium has been mentioned as one of the chemicals involved in the problem. This is understandable in light of the deleterious effects of the metal in a number of different organs and functions, its long biological half-life in humans, its potential formation of a variety of organic complexes, such as those structured with amines, sulfur, chloro, or chelates, and because of its high level of use in a number of human devices and its inefficient recycling [9]. In the present report, we confirmed the poisonous properties of cadmium against the various examined sperm and testicle endpoints. In terms of the sperm quality and concentration parameters, CC strongly damaged normal sperm in regard to motility, viability, and morphology. We found damage greater than 75%, with the exception of the spermatazoid amount, which was 30%. Additionally, with respect to DNA and chromosome structure, the administration of CC gave rise to more than an 85% damage increase regarding that observed in control mice. Moreover, our study also suggests that such an effect may be connected with CC's oxidative potential, as indicated by its elevated values in lipids and proteins, which were close to a duplication in comparison with the control data, as well as with the cell antioxidant decrease induced by CC. In fact, the high sensitivity of the male reproductive apparatus to the studied metal has been previously shown by various authors, as well as its participation, together with other environmental toxicants, in the declining fertility of animals, including humans [35]. In contrast, our results with GJ administration showed a strong potential to reduce the reproductive damage induced by CC. All the examined endpoints that were severely altered by exposure to the metal were highly improved with exposure to the juice. According to our calculations, the low, intermediate, and high GJ doses correspond to 1, 4, and 8 glasses of 250 mL of juice ingested by a human weighing 60 kg. Regarding the sperm quality observations, the three tested doses were probably related to the antigenotoxic and DNA repair capacities of various GJ constituents, and with respect to motility and morphologic anomalies, a significant improvement was detected with the two high doses. In addition, the sperm concentration decrease produced by the CC  
Figure 5: DPPH scavenging capacity of grapfruit juice (GJ) in the sera of mice administered cadmium chloride (CC). Each bar represents the mean \(\pm\) SDM obtained in five mice per group. Different letters show statistical differences, one-way ANOVA and post hoc Tukey test, \(p\leq 0.05\). was significantly ameliorated with the three tested doses of GJ. Moreover, our data also demonstrated a significant antigenotoxic effect of GJ on the damaging capacity of CC. This was shown by the significant inhibition of DNA fragmentation with the three doses of GJ, as well as the significant reduction in the CC-induced micronuclelei number with the two high doses of GJ. With respect to DNA fragmentation, GJ had a mean amelioration of 68%, and with respect to micronuclelei, the mean reduction corresponded to approximately 58%. In our study, a dose-dependent preventive decrease was also demonstrated by GJ with respect to the testicle lipid and protein oxidation produced by the CC administered to the mice, as well as the antioxidant capacity (shown with the DPPH assay), which significantly improved with the two high doses of GJ. These last three results suggest that the oxidative properties of CC were most likely involved in the observed reproductive damage and that such damage was efficiently counteracted by GJ-induced antioxidant molecular and cellular activities. It is known that the normal functioning of organisms requires a well-controlled and delicate balance between oxidation and antioxidant.