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Earth Medicine

Air Pollution Can Decrease Odds of Live Birth After IVF By 38%, Study Finds 56

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Air pollution exposure can significantly decrease the chance of a live birth after IVF treatment, according to research that deepens concern about the health impacts of toxic air on fertility. Pollutant exposure has previously been linked to increased miscarriage rates and preterm births, and microscopic soot particles have been shown to travel through the bloodstream into the ovaries and the placenta. The latest work suggests that the impact of pollution begins before conception by disrupting the development of eggs. "We observed that the odds of having a baby after a frozen embryo transfer were more than a third lower for women who were exposed to the highest levels of particulate matter air pollution prior to egg collection, compared with those exposed to the lowest levels," said Dr Sebastian Leathersich, a fertility specialist and gynaecologist from Perth who is due to present the findings on Monday at the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology annual meeting in Amsterdam. [...]

The study analyzed fertility treatments in Perth over an eight-year period, including 3,659 frozen embryo transfers from 1,836 patients, and tracked whether outcomes were linked to the levels of fine particulate matter, known as PM10. The overall live birthrate was about 28% per transfer. However, the success rates varied in line with exposure to pollutants in the two weeks leading up to egg collection. The odds of a live birth decreased by 38% when comparing the highest quartile of exposure to the lowest quartile. "These findings suggest that pollution negatively affects the quality of the eggs, not just the early stages of pregnancy, which is a distinction that has not been previously reported," Leathersich said. The team now plan to study cells directly to understand why pollutants have a negative effect. Previous work has shown that the microscopic particles can damage DNA and cause inflammation in tissues.
The report notes that the link between air pollution and live birth "was apparent despite excellent overall air quality during the study period, with PM10 and PM2.5 levels exceeding WHO guidelines on just 0.4% and 4.5% of the study days."

It adds: "Australia is one of just seven countries that met the WHO's guidelines in 2023, and this study is the latest to show evidence of harm even at relatively low levels of pollution."

The study has been published in the journal Human Reproduction.
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Air Pollution Can Decrease Odds of Live Birth After IVF By 38%, Study Finds

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  • I guess that's a relief. No more Axlotl tanks. (which were actually modified females).
  • Murder.... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by sit1963nz ( 934837 ) on Tuesday July 09, 2024 @12:22AM (#64611669)
    I wonder if this too will be considered murder by some US States...After all a fertilised egg is apparent "life", so the door is open
    • by Ichijo ( 607641 )

      You will not win them with logic because they call themselves "pro-life" but they are also pro-death-penalty and simply do not have enough brain cells to understand the contradiction.

      Try another way.

      • by Zak3056 ( 69287 )

        While I don't subscribe to the notion that a fertilized egg is a person, there is no cognitive dissonance inherent in being both "pro-life" and supporting the death penalty. One can simultaneously want to defend the innocent and punish the guilty.

        • While I don't subscribe to the notion that a fertilized egg is a person, there is no cognitive dissonance inherent in being both "pro-life" and supporting the death penalty. One can simultaneously want to defend the innocent and punish the guilty.

          While the other poster said it on the extremes, it's a whole spectrum of fail from that corner. Pro-life also tends to be anti-education, which leads to poorer quality of life, which leads to higher chances of turning criminal, which leads to higher chances of ending up committing a capital crime. It's literally a whole segment of society convinced that we *MUST* create as many humans as possible, always. While simultaneously believing that once you are born you deserve nothing but punishment and enslavemen

          • by Zak3056 ( 69287 )

            See, this is the problem: you equate "pro life" with a certain segment of Christians. Not everyone who is pro-life is opposed to education, or thinks people should have children in litters, or that people who are wealthy are somehow "better" than others (though I won't deny that there are a disturbing number of people who do fit that description).

            • See, this is the problem: you equate "pro life" with a certain segment of Christians. Not everyone who is pro-life is opposed to education, or thinks people should have children in litters, or that people who are wealthy are somehow "better" than others (though I won't deny that there are a disturbing number of people who do fit that description).

              And unfortunately, those are the ones making the most noise out of the issue, and the ones that the politicians try to appeal to because hatred sells almost as well as sex.

              • by Zak3056 ( 69287 )

                Some of the results of state laws passed post-Dobbs are absurd, and seeing people double down in the face of that is just vile. Hopefully the Republicans will stop pandering to those people when they realize it's causing them to lose elections.

                • Some of the results of state laws passed post-Dobbs are absurd, and seeing people double down in the face of that is just vile. Hopefully the Republicans will stop pandering to those people when they realize it's causing them to lose elections.

                  I honestly think the Republican name has been so tarnished by everything since Reagan that there's not a whole lot of hope for them to be anything more than the party of hate and vile garbage. While there were a few around that tried for a bit there, the reasonable ones are being driven out by the hate spew. It seems they're convinced that the only way forward is to continue on the self-destructive path. Too bad. Now we're down to only one side of the coin of corporatism's public mask.

        • by Ichijo ( 607641 )

          One can simultaneously want to defend the innocent and punish the guilty.

          Sure, but one cannot honestly call oneself "pro-life" when one seeks to end the lives of the guilty.

          • by Zak3056 ( 69287 )

            Sure, but one cannot honestly call oneself "pro-life" when one seeks to end the lives of the guilty.

            Eh, we can agree to disagree on this one. Sometimes death is necessary for the preservation of life.

            • by Ichijo ( 607641 )

              one cannot honestly call oneself "pro-life" when one seeks to end the lives of the guilty.

              we can agree to disagree on this one. Sometimes death is necessary for the preservation of life.

              Are you trolling or do you honestly believe that the death penalty is necessary for the preservation of life?

              • by Zak3056 ( 69287 )

                do you honestly believe that the death penalty is necessary for the preservation of life?

                In some circumstances? Absolutely. Some people are simply too dangerous even if they are in prison.

      • How about by pointing out that their so called God created a system that makes it clear that he couldn't care less about the completion of the fertility cycle? After all if ensoulment occurs at conception then 70%+ of all souls would naturally never be born. The vast majority of conceptions never make it to the point that the woman even knows she is pregnant. What exactly is the point of this soul generation and discarding process and how does it show "their God's love for souls"?
        • I don't believe in souls to begin so maybe I'm missing the point but to me that just sounds like word salad to justify the position of having women take responsibility for getting themselves pregnant. I don't quite understand why people don't just state that position as is, it's not that unreasonable.
    • I have the strangest suspicion that those states will find...distinctly limited...interest in that line of inquiry. It's not exactly news, in general, that at least the more dramatic pollution actually straight up kills people (at a population level, you don't typically have people falling into tanks of glowing green video game acid; but it's not like "cancer alley" is just a wacky statistical anomaly) and even that has translated to only rather middling support for enforcing less of it.

      "Pro life" is all
    • by jmccue ( 834797 )

      IIRC, that has been tried many years ago, but the US Supreme Court tossed it out. But that was before the majority of the justices were fully pwned by the US version of the "taliban".

      Now I think the current SC is waiting after the election to decide how to treat abortion. I think the ruling this year on mifepristone was to help Trump win. I am sure the 'six' wanted to ban it. We will see if I am correct after the election.

    • i thought that Alabama had already ruled that it was murder?
  • This effect could also occur for regular conception. IVF provides a way to measure this impact because you know the moment of conception and can easily compare different groups in similar circumstances. This is much more difficult for natural conception. Air pollution could have a major impact on fertility in general.
    • Given that IVF isn't exactly relying on fundamentally novel biology(significant prodding around the edges for gamete harvest, selection, and ensuring fertilization; but largely relying on the same placenta formation and embryonic development process as everyone else past the very early stage stuff that can be labbed out) it would really be more surprising if there weren't an effect on both.

      IVF is where the effect will be most obvious; because you've got very careful notes being taken about people inferti
      • Agreed, IVF just gives us a better way to measure it, it is almost certainly just as applicable to standard conception.
      • (edit): In thinking about it there is one thing that's fairly atypical in some fertility medicine cases: specifically the ones where one or both gametes have been in cryo for some time before use. It wouldn't be my first guess(and it shouldn't be a desperately tricky hypothesis to check; because they do IVF both with fresh material and in cases where one or both donor gametes have been on ice); but, given that the cryobiology guys are really interested in ice nucleation as a variable it's not a total lunacy
  • by Anonymous Coward

    Study Finds Air Pollution Reduces IVF Success by 38%; Concerned Father Blames His Own Flatulence

    In a shocking revelation that has rocked the world of reproductive medicine, a new study has found that air pollution reduces the probability of live birth after IVF by a staggering 38%. While scientists scramble to understand the implications of this discovery, one concerned father-to-be has taken the news particularly hard, fearing that his own extreme flatulence might be contributing to the problem.

  • Air pollution bad for IVF. PM10 is air pollution. CO_2 is air polllution (according to EPA and Scotus). CO_2 causes global warming (according to many). Therefore, global warming is bad for IVF.

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