Endocrine Abstracts

Obesity incidence is increasing globally at an alarming rate, particularly amongst children and young adults. Male obesity has been linked with a reduction in sperm quality and consequently decreased fertilization rates. Seminal vesicles are considered fundamental for male fertility and though for men’s health. Vesicle seminal secretion contributes to a significant volume of seminal fluid, being extremely important for semen coagulation and sperm motility. Recent studies ...

Metabolic disorders, such as overweight and obesity, are serious health societal challenges due to their high incidence rates. Obesity leads to metabolic dysregulation, promoting hormonal imbalance, oxidative stress, and a chronic inflammation state. Eating habits towards the intake of highly caloric fat-rich regimes induce epigenetic changes in the information transgenerationally transmitted. Furthermore, obesity promotes carcinogenesis. It is known that the prostate is sensi...

Infertility is a global health problem that affects about 15% of couples and approximately half of infertility cases are associated with male factors. Oxidative Stress (OS) is reported as one of the major causes of male infertility, mainly due to spermatozoa’s vulnerability to the attack of reactive oxygen species (ROS). Infertile couples often recur to assisted reproductive technology (ART) to achieve a successful pregnancy. However, ART protocols also increase the expos...

Infertility affects about 15% of couples, and, among these, 50% are related to the male factor. Male infertility can be caused by intrinsic factors, and these may either directly or indirectly affect gamete and testicular development as a consequence of endocrinopathies. In that sense, research regarding the involvement of endocrine hormones, particularly of nutritional status-linked hormones, in the male reproductive system has increased over the years. In fact, the rise on t...

Metabolic and endocrine dysregulation induced by high-fat diet (HFD) can lead to decreased male fertility potential and have a negative impact on the offspring’s metabolic health. Small non-coding RNAs (sncRNAs) were proposed as being potential mediators of metabolic queues across transgenerational inheritance. During development and epidydimal transit, spermatozoa become enriched with tRNA-derived stress-induced RNAs (tiRNAs). This sncRNAs class appears to be particularl...