boron and Infertility

As a part of a work to reveal the health effects of boron and its compounds, fertility and infertility states of sibs of probands, contacted and interviewed in the field, and of their spouses were given. The purposes were to prevent duplications seemingly inevitable in a relatively small community with prevailing consanguinity while analyzing marriages over respective generations and to reveal if there occurred an aggregation of infertile couples. Any family without offspring after about the second year of marriage was considered primary infertile as adopted throughout the study and such families were ascertained through the individual pedigree charts set up according to the instructions of the proband, he (she) himself (herself) being excluded. The rates of childless families of this type were 0.0-3.4% among male and 0.9-3.8% among female sibs of the participant, and 2.3-10.0% among male and 0.0-5.6% among female sibs of his (her) spouse with averages of 2.3% of 1589, 2.6% of 1589, 4.0% of 1314, and 3.3% of 1436 instances, respectively. The differences were insignificant and the rates were not different from those concerning probands themselves and that of a comparable segment of the Turkish population. "Borate families/kindreds" with two or more members engaged in the borate industry were also assessed in order to detect if there was a significant clustering of infertiles within the kindred. Although it was difficult to compare with a matched group, few couples were examples of familial concentration of infertility. These results provided further support that boron exposure does not affect human reproduction primarily and most probably secondarily.

Topics: Adult; Borates; Boron; Calcium Compounds; Environmental Exposure; Family Health; Female; Fertility; Humans; Infertility; Male; Turkey

As a part of a large-scale work aimed at studying the health effects of boron (B) in residents of a country with the world's largest supply, developmental effects of B are presented. Spontaneous abortions, stillbirths, and congenital malformations in addition to early infant mortality were questioned in the field by home visits. Although the number of families so far ascertained is rather small, the rates related to spontaneous abortions and stillbirths from high B exposure vs low B exposure subpopulations revealed no differences of significance, providing no evidence that B affects human development adversely.

Topics: Abortion, Spontaneous; Boron; Congenital Abnormalities; Female; Fetal Death; Humans; Infertility; Male; Pregnancy; Retrospective Studies; Turkey

Topics: Animals; Animals, Newborn; Boron; Female; Humans; Infertility; Infertility, Male; Male; Maternal-Fetal Exchange; Pathology; Pharmacology; Pregnancy; Pregnancy, Animal; Rats; Reproduction; Research; Testis; Toxicology