The Correlation Between Exposure to Air Pollutants and Infertility

Researchers have concluded that exposure to toxins in air pollutants are predominantly responsible for infertility that many people experience.

The results of recent studies conducted to establish a correlation between exposure to air pollution and infertility have shown that men and women who are exposed to air pollution for any amount of time are biologically affected in a way that contribute to their potential infertility. Exposure to air pollution has curtailed their abilities to conceive children because the chemicals in these pollutants have caused them to become too unhealthy to be capable of reproducing. The studies have also concluded that people who are exposed to air pollution causes a biological impairment for conceiving and remaining infertile as long as they are exposed to them. However, there are some pollutants that cause long-term damage, and possibly irreversible damage leading to permanent infertility.

How exposure to air pollutants contribute to infertility

There are vast amounts of pollutants that people are exposed to daily. The burning of fuels gives off toxins that we are exposed to in our daily lives when cooking, driving, heating and smoking. Other atmospheric pollutants that are present in day to day use are paint fumes, gasoline and the existence of airborne mercury. There are industrial functions that release immense amounts of noxious substances into the air every day like smoke from factory chimneys, exhaust from vehicles or burning of coal and petroleum products. The consequences of these actions are the releasing of sulfur dioxide into the air creating a poisonous environment. This is also how smog is formed. Smog is the combination of two words, smoke and fog, and it is caused mainly by air pollution. Air stagnation and the ever expanding and thickening smog covers over major metropolitan areas are a growing concern worldwide. Smog occurs when water vapor, ground-level ozone, other gases and fine particles are released into the air.

There is more information being made available on a more constant basis, to show the correlation between the presence of air pollutants and infertility. Statistics reported from the Center For Disease Control prove that 6.7 million women are unable to become pregnant, or they are incapable of carrying a baby full term. One of the reasons for this high amount is the toxins in cigarette smoke. A contributing factor to the high rate of infertility in women is the possibility that they smoke or are breathing second-hand smoke. If cigarette smoke doesn’t completely impair a woman’s ability to conceive, exposure to it can increase the time it takes for a woman to become pregnant. Increased incidences of DNA mutations in the ovum were also found to be associated with exposure to cigarette smoke. Air pollution contributes to causing complications with in vitro fertilization as well. High levels of the vehicle emission nitrogen dioxide can decrease the possibility of pregnancy from IVF. Even at low levels like 0.01 parts per million of nitrogen dioxide that are present around a woman’s home were shown to decrease the success of IVF by 20 percent.

Men are also seriously affected by exposure to air pollution. Studies have found that 15 percent of the global male population is infertile, which is a higher percentage than the rate of infertility found in women. Heavy-metal particles found in car exhaust have been found to cause infertility in men, creating excessive levels of free radicals in men’s blood and decreasing the quality and motility of sperm. Extremely high mercury levels in men’s blood were correlated with abnormally functioning and formed semen. Air pollution has also been linked to DNA damage in men that were irreversible. Studies have indicated that some effects that men and women have experienced that have caused their infertility can be reversed by decreasing exposure to air pollution and taking as many precautions as possible to avoid them.