14 DAY TRIAL // Many of us are pretty much clueless about it, but the fact of the matter is that there is a whole lot of ozone in the air we breathe and, at least as far as health goes, this spells bad news. In capital letters.
In a new report, specialists explain that ground-level ozone concentrations are usually at their highest in urban and suburban areas, where heat and intense sunlight birth this air pollutant from compounds in car and industrial emissions.
As shown by studies carried out over the years, exposure to ozone can negatively affect an individual's lung and heart health, and is especially dangerous to kids, elderly people and asthma sufferers.
According to Pennsylvania State University researcher Patricia Silveyra and colleagues, new evidence indicates that this pollutant can also reduce fertility in women. If this is indeed the case, this would mean ozone is more dangerous than assumed.
New insights into how ozone affects fertility
To document how exposure to this air pollutant affects fertility, specialist Patricia Silveyra and her team exposed several female laboratory mice to ozone concentrations of 2 parts per million (ppm, for short) for 3 hours in a row.
Following their being exposed to the air pollutant, the rodents experienced a drop in their levels of progesterone, which the researchers describe as a hormone involved in both ovulation and pregnancy.
Besides, the mice released fewer eggs than they did prior to breathing in ozone. Thus, the Pennsylvania State University scientist and colleagues recorded a 30% drop in the number of eggs produced by the animals they experimented on.
“We found that breathing ozone on the day of ovulation not only decreased progesterone levels in female mice, but also reduced the number of ovulated eggs,” explained collaborator Carla R. Caruso, as cited by Science Daily.
Ozone likely affects women in much the same way
The specialists behind this study suspect that exposure to ground-level ozone affects women in much the same way, meaning that it lowers progesterone levels and negatively affects ovulation.
Should further investigations prove them right, health officials will have to add women to the list of people especially vulnerable to ozone pollution, which, as mentioned, now includes children, elderly individuals and asthma sufferers.
The team led by Pennsylvania State University researcher Patricia Silveyra is now working to uncover exactly how and why ozone affects fertility in mice. Eventually, the scientists hope to move on to studies involving women.