According to some estimates, at least 70% of feedstuffs and finished feeds are contaminated with one or more mycotoxins and, due to its significant prevalence, both animals and humans are highly likely to be exposed to these toxins. In addition to health risks, they also cause economic issues. From a healthcare point of view, zearalenone (ZEA) and its derivatives have been shown to exert many negative effects. Specifically, ZEA has hepatotoxicity, immunotoxicity, genotoxicity, carcinogenicity, intestinal toxicity, reproductive toxicity and endocrine disruption effects. Of these effects, male reproductive deterioration and processes that lead to this have been reviewed in this study. Papers are reviewed that demonstrate estrogenic effects of ZEA due to its analogy to estradiol and how these effects may influence male reproductive cells such as spermatozoa, Sertoli cells and Leydig cells. Data that employ epigenetic effects of ZEA are also discussed. We discuss literature data demonstrating that reactive oxygen species formation in ZEA-exposed cells plays a crucial role in diminished spermatogenesis; reduced sperm motility, viability and mitochondrial membrane potential; altered intracellular antioxidant enzyme activities; and increased rates of apoptosis and DNA fragmentation; thereby resulting in reduced pregnancy.

A new, simple procedure for the determination of phenolic components of wines, such as resveratrol and piceid isomers, has been elaborated and validated. A set of 70 red wines and 3 white wines from two wineries (Polgar Winery and Bock Winery, Villany, Hungary) are analyzed by reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography. The samples are injected without pretreatment and UV-vis and mass spectrometric (MS) detection has been applied. The detection limit for trans-resveratrol and for trans-piceid is found to be 0.9 and 0.6 pmol for the UV-vis detection method and 0.3 and 0.2 pmol for the MS detection method. Trans-resveratrol and trans-piceid are found in red wines from 0.1 to 14.3 mg/L and from 3.8 to 16.4 mg/L concentrations, respectively.