Study to assess impact of air pollution on fertility

A major new study in China is set to assess the impact that air pollution in the country is having on fertility rates, following suggestions that rising levels of pollution in the country were to blame for a major rise in the number of women who are infertile.

The study has been sanctioned by China's Ministry of Science and Technology, and is a joint project involving Nanjing Medical University, Zhejiang University, the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Shanghai Jiao Tong University.

It will aim to figure out why the infertility rate among Chinese women of childbearing age rose from three per cent in 1990 to 12.5 per cent in 2010, with 40 million women across the country diagnosed as infertile.

Lead researcher Zhang Jun explained to the South China Morning Post that the study would focus on how organic pollutants that disrupt the human hormone system - known as endocrine disruptors - affect female fertility.

It is set to be the first ever large-scale scientific study into the relationship between environmental disruptors and female infertility in the country and will last five years, she said.

It may also debunk the commonly held belief that around 70 per cent of cases of female infertility and 50 per cent of male infertility cases are due to unhealthy lifestyles, rather than environmental factors.

Dr Zhang said her team will assess the presence of 20 different types of hormone-disrupting chemicals in women's blood and urine and use these alongside questionnaires to determine the effects of air pollution.

"We can't check every kind of environmental endocrine disruptor so we chose to focus on the chemicals which are used widely in our everyday life, such as pesticides, bisphenol A, plasticisers and some new material used in clothes," he told the newspaper.

The expert explained that new chemicals appear in people's lives "every day", so the problem the team faces is identifying which pose risks to people's health.

He concluded: "Our study will be significant in providing evidence to prove if these chemicals are harmful. And based on that we can make our policies to prevent any hazards from such environmental pollution."