ReviewNature reviews. Endocrinology2022
Environmental factors in declining human fertility.
Review in Nature reviews. Endocrinology, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 167 papers, 4 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
167 citing papers in PubMed, 4 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- The effect of job stress on fertility, its intention, and infertility treatment among the workers: a systematic review.BMC public health · 2025Pooled it
- Efficacy of dietary supplements as an adjunctive therapy for polycystic ovary syndrome: an umbrella meta-analysis.Frontiers in nutrition · 2025Pooled it
- Research Performance in Reproductive Biomedicine: A National Scientometrics Study.International journal of fertility & sterility · 2023Pooled it
- A Systematic Review of the Effects of High-Fat Diet Exposure on Oocyte and Follicular Quality: A Molecular Point of View.International journal of molecular sciences · 2022Pooled it
- Nut Consumption and Sperm Quality in Healthy Men: Results From the Led-Fertyl Study.Andrology · 2026Article
- A Western-style diet exacerbates male infertility in M1ap knockout mice.Human reproduction (Oxford, England) · 2026Article
- Pervasive Positive Selection on X-linked Ampliconic Genes in Primates.Genome biology and evolution · 2026Article
- Association between body mass index and semen quality in infertile men: a cross-sectional study of 28 167 patients.Asian journal of andrology · 2026Article
- Fertility protection in the reproductive-age population: A evolutionary concept analysis.International journal of nursing sciences · 2026Review
- Sperm-Associated Mercury Species Levels Determine Its Impairment: Evidence from Paired Analyses of Whole Semen and Seminal Plasma.Biological trace element research · 2026Article
- Global burden of male infertility from 1990 to 2021 and 15 years forecast: A cross-sectional analysis of Global Burden of Disease Study 2021.Chinese medical journal · 2026Article
- Spatially resolved micromechanical characterisation of human testis tissue reveals distinct signatures across developing, adult and pathological tissue states.Bioactive materials · 2026Article
- Seminal Plasma Exosomes in Male Infertility: Roles, Mechanisms, and Applications-A Double-Edged Sword.The world journal of men's health · 2026Review
- Associations of Lifestyle Factors with Cadmium and Nickel in Seminal Fluid of Potential Sperm Donors.Biological trace element research · 2026Article
- Semen Quality in a Large Cohort of Males Living in Highly Polluted Areas of Campania Region in Southern Italy with a Focus on the Role of Cadmium Exposure.Journal of clinical medicine · 2026Article
- The Global Decline in Sperm Count and Testosterone Levels: Trends, Mechanisms, and Environmental Drivers.Antioxidants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Article
- Gut microbiota and their role in male reproductive health.NPJ science of food · 2026Review
- Homo sapiens, industrialisation and the environmental mismatch hypothesis.Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society · 2026Review
- Physiological interplay among obesity, male fertility, and aryl hydrocarbon receptor in human and mice: A mini review.Open veterinary journal · 2026Review
107 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
- Commented on by
- Commented on by
Authors and funding
16 authors.
Funding
Abstract
A severe decline in child births has occurred over the past half century, which will lead to considerable population declines, particularly in industrialized regions. A crucial question is whether this decline can be explained by economic and behavioural factors alone, as suggested by demographic reports, or to what degree biological factors are also involved. Here, we discuss data suggesting that human reproductive health is deteriorating in industrialized regions. Widespread infertility and the need for assisted reproduction due to poor semen quality and/or oocyte failure are now major health issues. Other indicators of declining reproductive health include a worldwide increasing incidence in testicular cancer among young men and alterations in twinning frequency. There is also evidence of a parallel decline in rates of legal abortions, revealing a deterioration in total conception rates. Subtle alterations in fertility rates were already visible around 1900, and most industrialized regions now have rates below levels required to sustain their populations. We hypothesize that these reproductive health problems are partially linked to increasing human exposures to chemicals originating directly or indirectly from fossil fuels. If the current infertility epidemic is indeed linked to such exposures, decisive regulatory action underpinned by unconventional, interdisciplinary research collaborations will be needed to reverse the trends.
Indexed as
Identifiers
34912078What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.