Reproductive Aging Impacts on Fertility and Overall Health

1 Unit · Graduate

Life expectancy across the globe has increased due to medical and health advances. However, aging is associated with tissue function deterioration which underlies many diseases and chronic conditions. Both somatic and reproductive tissues lose function with age. The female reproductive system is unique in that it is one of the first in the human body to show overt signs of aging. Female fertility begins to decline in women in their mid-thirties and reproductive function ceases completely at the time of menopause at around age fifty. In the ovary, reproductive aging is associated with a loss of egg quantity and quality which contributes to infertility, miscarriages, and birth defects. In addition, eggs develop in follicles which produce important hormones such as estrogen and progesterone which impact the function of organs. The loss of gonadal hormones with age can have broad general health effects on cardiovascular, immune, sexual, brain, and bone health. Female reproductive aging has significant clinical consequences as more women are delaying childbearing and are living decades post-menopause. While men remain fertile much later in life than women, they still experience reproductive aging. In fact, men will experience decreased testicular volume, altered gonadal hormone production, and changes in semen parameters with age. Moreover, advanced paternal age can have impacts on the next generation through epigenetic mechanisms. Differences between the sexes, in part due to sex chromosome and hormones, also translates into sexual dimorphism in aging trajectories and age-related diseases. This course will bring together reproductive scientists, clinical specialists, geronotologists, toxicologists, economists, journalists, and company executives to examine reproductive aging from multiple perspectives.