zearalenone and Infertility

Topics: Animal Feed; Animals; Cattle; Cattle Diseases; Chickens; Child; Eggs; Female; Food Analysis; Foodborne Diseases; Fusarium; Humans; Infertility; Male; Meat; Milk; Mycotoxins; Poultry Diseases; Puberty, Precocious; Resorcinols; Swine; Swine Diseases; Vaginal Diseases; Zearalenone; Zeranol

Topics: Abortion, Veterinary; Animal Feed; Animals; Cohort Studies; Female; Fetal Death; Food Contamination; Infertility; Litter Size; Mycotoxins; Pregnancy; Prospective Studies; Swine; Swine Diseases; Trichothecenes; Zearalenone

Feeding rabbits with mycelium from Fusarium roseum is shown to produce infertility, the disappearance of aggressivity, and homosexual behaviour in males, while the effect of the females is only infertility. This mycelium contains the mycotoxin zearalenon which has effects similar to those of the female hormone. This fungus willingly grows on common crops and is consumed both by people and animals-although normally in very low doses. It cannot be ruled out that an increased growth of fungus, due to artificial fertilization, which then can be demonstrated to be found in food and consumed, can be a factor which increases the incidence of homosexual behavior in people.

Topics: Animals; Female; Fusarium; Infertility; Male; Rabbits; Resorcinols; Sexual Behavior, Animal; Zearalenone

Samples of corn suspected of causing infertility and refusal symptoms were analyzed and found to contain nivalenol, deoxynivalenol, T2 toxin and zearalenone, metabolites from Fusarium species.

Topics: Animal Feed; Animals; Biological Assay; Chromatography, Thin Layer; Female; Infertility; Male; Resorcinols; Sesquiterpenes; Trichothecenes; Zea mays; Zearalenone