Female reproductive aging often affects women's emotional, physical, and physiological well-being. Ovarian aging is characterized by fluctuations in reproductive hormones and determines the age at which menopause occurs. Understanding potentially modifiable factors that influence this process is essential for addressing health disparities, improving quality of life, and informing relevant public health strategies. This review synthesizes in vivo, in vitro, and epidemiological findings about the effects of endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs), specifically heavy metals and perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) on female reproductive aging. Most in vivo and in vitro studies have demonstrated that heavy metals alter ovarian morphology, folliculogenesis, and steroidogenesis. Evidence regarding the effects of PFAS is limited and inconsistent. Epidemiological studies have consistently shown that heavy metals are associated with a higher risk of diminished ovarian reserve (indicated by decreased anti-Müllerian hormone) and earlier menopause, with limited findings regarding reproductive hormone changes. PFAS exposure has been associated with decreased estradiol and earlier menopause but not significantly with ovarian reserve. Gaps in the literature require more comprehensive epidemiological research on the effects of EDCs on female reproductive aging, including ovarian reserve, age at menopause, and vasomotor symptoms, to inform future interventions to reduce hazardous exposures and improve women's health.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1055/s-0044-1801388 | DOI Listing |
Probiotics Antimicrob Proteins
January 2025
Department of Food Science and Technology, Faculty of Nutrition & Food Sciences, Nutrition, Tabriz, Iran.
Infertility poses a global challenge that impacts a significant proportion of the populace. Presently, there is a substantial emphasis on investigating the potential of probiotics and their derivatives, called postbiotics, as an alternative therapeutic strategy for addressing infertility. The term of "postbiotics" refers to compounds including peptides, enzymes, teichoic acids, and muropeptides derived from peptidoglycans, polysaccharides, proteins, and organic acids that are excreted by living bacteria or released after bacterial lysis.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBull Math Biol
January 2025
School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, 2006, Australia.
Compared to our closest primate relatives, human life history involves greater longevity, which includes a distinctive postmenopausal life stage. Given mammalian reproductive physiology in which females build a finite stock of cells that can become oocytes early in life, which then continuously deplete mostly through cell death while males produce new sperm throughout adulthood, the postmenopausal stage makes the sex ratio in the fertile pool, called the adult sex ratio (ASR), male biased. Additionally, this affects a more fine-grained ratio, the operational sex ratio (OSR), defined as the ratio of males to females currently able to conceive.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Assist Reprod Genet
January 2025
Ovarian Physiopathology Studies Laboratory, Institute of Experimental Biology and Medicine (IByME) - CONICET, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Purpose: This study aimed to evaluate the long-term impact of mild COVID-19 infection and COVID-19 vaccination on ovarian function in patients undergoing assisted reproductive technology (ART). Specifically, we assessed ovarian outcomes between 9 and 18 months post-infection and investigated the effects of COVID-19 vaccines (inactivated virus and adenovirus) on reproductive parameters.
Methods: The study included two objectives: (a) examining ovarian function in post-COVID-19 patients (9-18 months post-infection) compared to a control group and (b) comparing reproductive outcomes in vaccinated versus unvaccinated patients.
J Assist Reprod Genet
January 2025
Reproductive Medical Center, The Second Hospital of Jilin University, Changchun, 130000, China.
The objective of this study is to explore the impact of the use of granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) in female undergoing assisted reproductive technology (ART) on reproductive outcomes. A literature search was performed using electronic databases (PubMed, EMBASE, Web of Science, CNKI, Wanfang data, Geen Medical, and Cochrane Library). Risk ratio (RR), odds ratio (OR), and mean difference (MD) with 95% confidence intervals (CI) for various outcomes were presented.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTrop Anim Health Prod
January 2025
Laboratory of Small Ruminant Genetics, Breeding and Reproduction, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, 430070, People's Republic of China.
Growth traits are one of the focuses of sheep breeding, and growth curve is an effective method to describe growth traits. The body weight of Yiling sheep at 0, 120, 180, 360 and 540 days of age were fitted with five common nonlinear growth models: Logistic, Gompertz, Von Bertalanffy, Brody and Negative exponential, and the growth models were evaluated by goodness of fit standard. The results showed that the Von Bertalanffy model was suitable for characterizing the growth of Yiling sheep.
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