VIDEO: Does the mother’s nitrate intake have an effect on her son’s semen and daughter’s puberty?
Danish girls – and possibly also boys – enter puberty earlier and earlier, and sperm quality among Danish men is worryingly low. PhD student Pernille Jul Clemmensen from Aarhus University receives funding to investigate whether part of the explanation can be found in the nitrate, which pregnant women consume via their diet and the drinking water.
Pernille Jul Clemmensen conducts research into environmental exposure and reproductive health. In her PhD project, she examines data from the "Danish National Birth Cohort", which contains information about the diet, lifestyle and medication of women during pregnancy and on the pubertal development of their children, as well as the sperm quality and hormone levels of their sons. When Pernille Jul Clemmensen assesses the mother’s nitrate intake from drinking water, data from the cohort is further supplemented with the annual measurements of nitrate levels in Danish drinking water.
Pernille Jul Clemmensen and her colleagues hope that the project will contribute to finding out whether a high intake of nitrate and the taking of nitrosatable drugs during pregnancy has an influence on when sons and daughters enter puberty, and whether this leads to a low sperm quality and altered hormone levels in adult sons. If their study finds that the effects of nitrate and nitrosatable medication are damaging for health, this may influence the preventative health advice given to pregnant women in relation to diet and medication.
Pernille Jul Clemmensen receives DKK 550,000 from the Danish health foundation Helsefonden for the project, and the grant will fund new blood test analyses, among other things.
Contact
PhD student, MD Pernille Jul Clemmensen
Aarhus University, Department of Public Health
Mobile: (+45) 6166 7974
Email: p.jul@ph.au.dk