Papers

61,005 results
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Article Tier 2

Environmental determinants of male infertility: emerging threats and technological interventions

This review examines how environmental contaminants, including microplastics, air pollution, heavy metals, and endocrine-disrupting chemicals, may contribute to declining male fertility. The study suggests these environmental toxins can impair sperm function through oxidative stress, hormonal imbalance, and inflammation, and highlights the need for integrating environmental exposure data into fertility assessments.

2026 Frontiers in Medicine
Article Tier 2

Environmental Risk Factors for Infertility Focusing on Egypt: A Narrative Review

This narrative review examined environmental risk factors for infertility in Egypt, identifying heavy metals, pesticides, and microplastics as emerging concerns and summarizing epidemiological and mechanistic evidence linking environmental exposure to reproductive impairment.

2024 Journal of High Institute of Public Health
Article Tier 2

Implications of environmental toxicants on ovarian follicles: how it can adversely affect the female fertility?

This review examines how environmental toxicants, including endocrine disrupting chemicals, heavy metals, agrochemicals, and chemicals used in plastic and cosmetic industries, can adversely affect female fertility. Researchers found that these substances can interfere with follicle development and lead to conditions like polycystic ovary syndrome, premature ovarian insufficiency, and meiotic defects. The study highlights the difficulty of isolating individual risk factors since multiple toxicants often share common pathways of reproductive harm.

2021 Environmental Science and Pollution Research 61 citations
Article Tier 2

Impact of environmental toxin exposure on male fertility potential

This review examines how environmental toxin exposures, including endocrine-disrupting chemicals found in plastics, may contribute to declining male fertility. Researchers found consistent evidence linking exposure to phthalates, bisphenol A, and other synthetic chemicals to reduced sperm quality and hormonal disruption. The study suggests that the dramatic increase in human chemical exposures over recent decades may be a significant factor in the observed decline in male reproductive health.

2020 Translational Andrology and Urology 158 citations
Article Tier 2

Microplastics and Fertility

This paper reviews the growing body of evidence linking microplastic exposure to impaired human fertility, covering how microplastics and associated chemical additives can disrupt reproductive hormones and damage sperm and egg quality. It highlights the need for further research to establish dose-response relationships.

2024 Exon Publications eBooks
Article Tier 2

What is driving the global decline of human fertility? Need for a multidisciplinary approach to the underlying mechanisms

This paper examines the many factors driving the worldwide drop in human fertility rates, including delayed childbearing, obesity, and environmental toxicants such as nanoplastics and air pollution that harm reproductive health. The authors warn that these trends could have devastating public health consequences for our species if the underlying causes are not addressed.

2024 Frontiers in Reproductive Health 47 citations
Article Tier 2

Innovations in minimally invasive gynecologic surgery: Benefits and challenges

This review examines how environmental factors—including endocrine-disrupting chemicals that are commonly associated with plastic additives and microplastic particles—impair reproductive health in both males and females and reduce the success of assisted reproductive technologies. The findings highlight microplastics and their chemical cargo as a meaningful contributor to the global rise in infertility.

2023
Article Tier 2

Male infertility and its link to microplastics: A sterile future

This review examines the link between microplastic exposure and male infertility, summarizing evidence that microplastics and their chemical additives disrupt reproductive hormones, sperm quality, and testicular function in animal models and human studies.

2024 Journal of Biomedical Sciences
Systematic Review Tier 1

Combined exposure to microplastics and pesticides with endocrine-disrupting potential: evidence of interaction, reproductive biomarkers, and tissue bioaccumulation in humans and animal models

This review study examines how tiny plastic particles (microplastics) and certain pesticides might work together to disrupt hormones and affect fertility in humans and animals. The research suggests these common pollutants may be more harmful when combined than when encountered separately, potentially impacting reproductive health. Understanding these interactions is important because people are exposed to both microplastics and pesticides daily through food, water, and the environment.

2026 OSF Preprints (OSF Preprints)
Article Tier 2

Climate change, microplastics, and male infertility

This brief commentary discusses how climate change and exposure to environmental pollutants, including microplastics and endocrine-disrupting chemicals, may be contributing to the documented decline in male fertility over recent decades. While the exact causes remain unknown, the authors highlight the need for more research into how these environmental factors affect reproductive health.

2024 Current Opinion in Urology 16 citations
Article Tier 2

Microplastics May Be a Significant Cause of Male Infertility

This review examines the potential link between microplastic exposure and the decline in male fertility observed over recent decades. Researchers reviewed evidence showing that microplastics can accumulate in reproductive tissues and may damage sperm quality through oxidative stress, hormonal disruption, and inflammatory responses. The study suggests that microplastics deserve serious attention as a possible contributing factor to rising male infertility rates.

2022 American Journal of Men s Health 81 citations
Article Tier 2

Impacto de los disruptores endocrinos derivados de plásticos en la regulación hormonal masculina: un análisis integral de la evidencia científica

This literature review compiled recent studies on how phthalates, bisphenol A, and microplastics from plastic products disrupt male hormonal regulation, finding evidence for reduced testosterone, impaired testicular synthesis, and alterations in the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal axis. The review calls for greater attention to plastic-derived endocrine disruptors in male reproductive health research.

2025 Revista Metropolitana de Ciencias Aplicadas
Article Tier 2

Adverse effects of microplastics and nanoplastics on the reproductive system: A comprehensive review of fertility and potential harmful interactions

This review summarizes how microplastics and nanoplastics can harm both male and female reproductive systems by disrupting hormone signaling, damaging sperm and egg cells, and causing inflammation in reproductive tissues. Smaller nanoplastics are especially concerning because they can cross biological barriers more easily and reach the testes and ovaries. With global infertility rates rising, the authors highlight environmental plastic exposure as a factor that deserves more research attention.

2023 The Science of The Total Environment 99 citations
Review Tier 2

"Unseen Dangers: The Effects of Micro- and Nanoplastics on Human Reproductive Health - A Narrative Review"

This review examines the effects of micro- and nanoplastics on human reproductive health, covering evidence from in vitro, animal, and epidemiological studies showing that plastic particles can disrupt hormone signaling, sperm function, ovarian development, and placental integrity.

2025 Recent Advances in Inflammation & Allergy Drug Discovery
Meta Analysis Tier 3

Quantitative analysis and toxicological mechanisms of various male infertility inducers: A network meta-analysis and pharmacological approach.

This network meta-analysis of 201 rodent studies compared nine common male infertility inducers, finding that microplastics caused among the most severe impairments to sperm count and motility — on par with the chemotherapy drug cyclophosphamide. Oxidative stress emerged as a shared mechanistic pathway across all inducers, pointing to it as a key target for understanding and potentially mitigating reproductive harm from environmental exposures.

2026 Reproductive toxicology (Elmsford, N.Y.)
Meta Analysis Tier 1

The effects of exposure to microplastics on female reproductive health and pregnancy outcomes: A systematic review and meta-analysis

This meta-analysis pools data from multiple studies to assess how microplastic exposure affects female reproductive health and pregnancy outcomes. The findings suggest that microplastic accumulation may be linked to adverse effects on fertility and pregnancy, highlighting an important and underexplored area of concern for women's health.

2025 Reproductive Toxicology 7 citations
Article Tier 2

Toxicological effects of micro/nano-plastics on human reproductive health: A review

This review summarizes research on how micro- and nanoplastics affect human reproductive health in both men and women. Evidence from animal and lab studies shows that these particles can accumulate in reproductive organs, disrupt hormones, damage eggs and sperm, and cause inflammation and oxidative stress. While human studies are still limited, the growing body of evidence suggests that microplastic exposure is a potential threat to fertility that warrants further investigation.

2025 Toxicology Letters 7 citations
Review Tier 2

Environmental and microbiome determinants of sperm quality: a narrative review on male health

This narrative review examines how environmental factors, including microplastics and other emerging contaminants, affect male sperm quality and fertility. The study suggests that pollutants such as heavy metals, pesticides, phthalates, PFAS, air pollution, and microplastics can impair sperm parameters through various mechanisms, and highlights the role of the reproductive microbiome in mediating these environmental effects.

2026 Translational Andrology and Urology
Review Tier 2

Microplastics and human fertility: A comprehensive review of their presence in human samples and reproductive implication

This review examines the growing evidence linking microplastic and nanoplastic exposure to potential effects on human fertility. Researchers noted that these tiny plastic particles have been detected in blood, placenta, and seminal fluid, suggesting continuous systemic exposure and the ability to cross key biological barriers. Animal studies indicate that microplastics may affect reproductive health through oxidative stress, hormonal disruption, and tissue damage, though more standardized human research is needed.

2025 Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety 2 citations
Article Tier 2

Plasticisers: A Potential Reproductive-toxicant for Humans

This review examines plasticizers, particularly phthalates and bisphenols, as reproductive toxicants in humans, summarizing evidence that these chemicals leach from plastics and disrupt endocrine function, affecting fertility and fetal development. The authors highlight the need for stricter regulation given widespread human exposure through food packaging, personal care products, and household items.

2022 Chettinad Health City Medical Journal 8 citations
Article Tier 2

The hidden threat: Unraveling the impact of microplastics on reproductive health

This review summarizes how microplastics disrupt the reproductive system in both males and females by interfering with hormone signaling, damaging the blood-testis barrier, impairing sperm production, and causing problems in the ovaries and uterus. The authors also note that microplastic exposure may affect offspring development, including their future reproductive capacity and metabolism.

2024 The Science of The Total Environment 71 citations
Article Tier 2

Unraveling the threat: Microplastics and nano-plastics' impact on reproductive viability across ecosystems

This review summarizes research on how microplastics and nanoplastics affect reproduction across many species, from aquatic invertebrates to mammals including humans. In males, exposure leads to testicular damage, lower sperm quality, and hormone disruption; in females, it causes ovarian and uterine problems, inflammation, and reduced fertility. The evidence also shows these reproductive harms can be passed to offspring, raising serious concerns about long-term effects on human fertility.

2023 The Science of The Total Environment 44 citations
Article Tier 2

The Rising Threat: Nano and Microplastics Infiltration in Urinary and Reproductive Systems

A multicenter biomonitoring study from the EcoFoodFertility Project detected microplastics in human urine, semen, and follicular fluid samples, linking environmental microplastic contamination to the urinary and reproductive systems and raising concerns about fertility impacts.

2025 Journal of Biological Research - Bollettino della Società Italiana di Biologia Sperimentale
Article Tier 2

Microplastics and endocrine disruption: Emerging risks for human fertility

This short communication reviewed emerging evidence that microplastics and nanoplastics disrupt endocrine function and reproductive health, highlighting effects on hormonal regulation, gametogenesis, and fertility outcomes. The authors called for more epidemiological studies to establish links between human microplastic exposure and fertility decline.

2025 Journal of Biomedical Sciences