Seasonal alterations in plasma cortisol in peripartum Murrah buffaloes (Bubalus bubalis) as assayed by a sensitive enzymeimmunoassay in subtropical climate

Effect of lowering blood cortisol level along with progesterone priming on intensifying the secondary symptoms of oestrus in Murrah buffaloes during the hot summer months

“…Kumar et al (2020) during the winter season (close to 9 ng/ml) and matched closely to that reported byMegahed et al (2008) during the summer season.Administration of glycerol to group Gly not only increased the blood glucose concentration but also significantly decreased the cortisol level compared to un-treated control indicating that glycerol as a glucogenic precursor has the potential to mitigate the negative F I G U R E 1 Blood cortisol level (mean ± SEM, ng/ml) in heatstressed pre-pubertal buffalo heifers following administration of glycerol (group Gly; n = 5), glycerol+ vitamin E & se (group Gly + E; n = 5) and glycerol + vitamin E & Se + B-complex (group Gly + Ese + B-Ch) treated cows. Group Co-1 (n = 5) did not receive any treatment and served as the control group; day 0 is the start of the treatments and on that day blood was assayed before treatments; a,b,c: Results of Duncan's multiple range test, similar alphabets denoting a) Blood estradiol 17β (mean ± SEM) and cortisol (mean ± SEM) level in heat-stressed pre-pubertal buffalo heifers a day after the administration of 2 mg estradiol benzoate; (b) blood progesterone level in heat-stressed pre-pubertal buffalo heifers on days 0, 5 and 7 of the start of treatments; day 0 has been considered as the day of start of treatments for all groups; Group P4 (n = 20) had intra-vaginal progesterone CIDR inserted for 5 days (day 0-5), group Gly-E (n = 20) received 100 ml glycerol orally for 7 days (day 0-6) along with intra-muscular injections of 500 mg tocopherol and 150 mg sodium selenite combination on alternate days starting from day 0 (four treatments) and group P4 + Gly-E (n = 20) received the combination treatment of group P4 and Gly-E. Co-2 (n = 20) did not receive any treatment and served as the control group.…”

“…In fact our cortisol values (14-16 ng/ml) match closely to that reported by Megahed et al (2008) during the summer season (close to 15 ng/ml). However, contradictory results have been reported by Kumar et al (2020) in that the cortisol level in summer was lower compared to the winter season in buffaloes. Though we did not compare the cortisol level in buffaloes with the value during the winter season, our cortisol level during the summer season (14-16 ng/ml) was much higher than the high reported by…”