Air
pollution threatens the perpetuation of the species. Or at least, it greatly
hinders it. Beyond respiratory diseases or lung tumors, whose link with poor
air quality is well known and admitted by the World Health Organization (WHO),
a group of researchers have found that air pollution also affects To fertility,
both female and male. Doctors at the Barcelona Sea Hospital and its research
center (IMIM) have done two reviews of the scientific literature to study the
impact of exposure to pollutants on the rate of human infertility and have
concluded that air pollution reduces fertility And increases the risk of
miscarriages.
The study,
commissioned by the American Society of Reproductive Medicine and published in
the journal Fertility and Sterility, warns of the environmental effects on
fertility. "In fertile women, pollution reduces the fertility rate and
increases the risk of miscarriage and, likewise, in women who use in vitro
fertilization techniques, the impact of air pollutants reduces the number of
births and causes More abortions, "said Dr. Miguel Ángel Checa, head of
the study and head of the human reproduction section of the gynecology and
obstetrics department of the Hospital del Mar.
In the first
review, Checa and his team studied the impact on male and female fertility
through the analysis of several pollutants: fine particles (PM), nitrogen
dioxide, sulfur dioxide and The carbon monoxide. According to the doctor, the
research corroborates that fine particles - they are suspended in the air in a
liquid and solid state and, when inhaled, they pass to the bronchi (can cause
cancer) and to the sanguineous torrent - generate that, in assisted
reproduction, "there Fewer live births and more miscarriages. " A
population-based study in Barcelona found a relationship between elevated PM
levels and reduced pregnancy rates, a finding similar to that found in other
research in the USA and the Czech Republic.
Nitrogen
dioxide, for its part, also "increases the risk of miscarriages in spontaneous
reproduction and in vitro fertilization when patients are exposed to high
concentrations of this gas." Sulfur dioxide and carbon monoxide, all from
the combustion of fossil fuels, also help increase the rate of miscarriages.
"In summary, the number of live newborns in in vitro fertilization, the
rate of embryo implantation, and abortion increase," Checa says.
In the
second review, the research focused on sperm quality after assessing exposure
to the same contamination parameters. "We have reviewed 17 studies in
which patients subjected to these levels of contamination have sperm damage, in
terms of number, mobility and deformity," says the doctor, who also heads
the IMIM research group. If the iconic image of the sperm is characterized by a
long tail and an oval head, researchers have found that by exposing these cells
to atmospheric pollution, they end up with deformed heads less fertilizers, for
example. In addition, more specific studies found that the DNA of these
spermatozoa is fragmented. "If the DNA strands break, when it joins the
oocyte, these chains of the two do not spliced together," he says.
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