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61,005 resultsShowing papers similar to Climate change, microplastics, and male infertility
ClearEnvironmental 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.
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.
Disruptors on Male Reproduction – Emerging Risk Factors
This review of emerging risk factors for male infertility covers endocrine-disrupting chemicals, heavy metals, pesticides, radiation, and pharmaceuticals, including a section on microplastics and the plastic-associated chemicals that have been linked to hormonal disruption and reduced sperm quality. While microplastics are one of several disruptors discussed rather than the sole focus, the paper is relevant because it places microplastic exposure within the broader context of the global decline in sperm counts and male reproductive health over recent decades.
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.
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.
Microplastics: A Threat for Male Fertility
This review examines the growing evidence that microplastics may pose a threat to male fertility in mammals. Researchers found that these tiny plastic particles can enter the body through food and water, accumulate in tissues, and carry environmental pollutants that may act as hormone disruptors. Recent studies suggest that microplastic exposure is associated with changes in sperm quality, making them a potential concern for reproductive health.
Targeting Modifiable Risks: Molecular Mechanisms and Population Burden of Lifestyle Factors on Male Genitourinary Health
This systematic review examines how lifestyle factors, including microplastic exposure, affect male reproductive health. Research shows that microplastics, along with other environmental contaminants, may contribute to declining sperm quality and male infertility, which now affects up to 50% of infertility cases worldwide.
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.
Microplastics Exposure Is Harmful to Male Reproductive Health
This chapter reviewed evidence on how microplastic exposure may harm male reproductive health through multiple pathways including ingestion and inhalation. The study examined mechanisms by which microplastics may disrupt reproductive function, including hormonal interference, oxidative stress, and inflammation in reproductive tissues, suggesting that widespread environmental microplastic contamination warrants attention as a potential factor in male fertility concerns.
Editorial: Lifestyle and environmental factors and human fertility
This editorial introduces research on how lifestyle and environmental factors — including microplastics — affect human fertility. Global infertility rates are rising, with evidence of declining sperm counts in men and increasing reproductive disorders in women, particularly in low- and middle-income regions.
Microplastics and impaired male reproductive health—exploring biological pathways of harm: a narrative review
This narrative review summarizes the evidence that microplastics may harm male reproductive health through oxidative stress, hormone disruption, inflammation, and direct damage to reproductive cells. While animal studies show concerning effects on sperm quality, testicular function, and fertility, human studies are still lacking. The review calls for urgent research on microplastic impacts on human male fertility and for policies to reduce microplastic exposure.
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.
Microplastics and male reproductive system: A comprehensive review based on cellular and molecular effects
This comprehensive review examines how microplastics affect the male reproductive system at cellular and molecular levels, drawing on studies from multiple scientific databases. Researchers found that microplastics can damage testicular structure and function, impair spermatogenesis, and disrupt sperm parameters through mechanisms including oxidative stress, inflammation, and activation of cell death pathways. The review highlights that microplastics reduce ATP production and trigger signaling cascades that may contribute to male fertility problems.
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.
The role of environmental toxins in infertility: Insights from cutting-edge research
Researchers reviewed the effects of environmental toxins including bisphenol A, pesticides, heavy metals, microplastics, and electromagnetic fields on human fertility. The study found that these substances have been linked to both male and female infertility through various mechanisms, and highlights the need for greater awareness and regulatory action to reduce exposure to these reproductive toxicants.
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.
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.
Secular changes in human reproduction and assisted reproductive technologies
This demographic review examines trends in human fertility and infertility over recent decades, noting that while child survival has improved, infertility affects about 15% of couples worldwide. The paper reviews assisted reproductive technologies as a response to this trend. While not directly about microplastics, there is growing evidence that microplastic exposure is one factor contributing to declining reproductive function in both men and women.
Why Is Fertility So Low in High Income Countries?
This paper examines why birth rates have fallen to historically low levels across all high-income countries, documenting rising childlessness and declining completed family sizes. The authors argue that short-term economic explanations are insufficient, and instead point to a broad cultural shift where parenthood plays a smaller role in adult priorities. While not directly about microplastics, recent research has linked microplastic and nanoplastic exposure to reproductive harm in both males and females, suggesting environmental pollutants could be one factor among many contributing to declining fertility.
Detection and characterization of microplastics in the human testis and semen
Researchers detected microplastics in both human testis tissue and semen samples for the first time, finding an average of about 12 particles per gram in testis and different plastic types in semen. Polystyrene dominated in testis while polyethylene and PVC were most common in semen, providing critical evidence that microplastics can pollute the male reproductive system and raising concerns about potential fertility impacts.
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.
The Threat of Micro-/Nanoplastics to Male Fertility: A Review of the Data and the Importance of Future Research
This review synthesizes findings from 21 studies examining how micro- and nanoplastics and their associated endocrine-disrupting chemicals affect male reproductive health at the cellular level. Researchers found evidence of multiple toxicity mechanisms including damage to the blood-testis barrier, disruption of hormone signaling, oxidative stress, and structural damage to testicular tissues. The study notes that while these findings from cell and animal studies are concerning, translating the results to human health requires further research with realistic exposure conditions.
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.
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.