Premium
Male reproductive system and antioxidants in oxidative stress induced by hypobaric hypoxia
Author(s) -
Zepeda A. B.,
Figueroa C. A.,
Calaf G. M.,
Farías J. G.
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
andrologia
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.633
H-Index - 59
eISSN - 1439-0272
pISSN - 0303-4569
DOI - 10.1111/and.12039
Subject(s) - oxidative stress , hypoxia (environmental) , spermatogenesis , effects of high altitude on humans , male reproductive system , biology , reactive oxygen species , epididymis , andrology , medicine , endocrinology , physiology , microbiology and biotechnology , chemistry , oxygen , anatomy , sperm , organic chemistry
Summary In Chile, due to the intensive activity developed in confining areas of the Andes Mountains ranging in altitude over 4000 asl, there has been an increasing intermittent movement of human resources to high altitude conditions. This unusual condition, defined as hypobaric hypoxia, affects notoriously in any living organism and there shows a series of physiological responses. Studies performed in rats under chronic hypobaric hypoxia and intermittent hypobaric hypoxia have registered changes in testicular morphology together with loss of spermatogenic cells in all stages of spermatogenic cycle. Furthermore, recent tests reinforced the existence of an oxidative metabolism in epididymis of rats subjected to hypobaric hypoxia due to the increase in the regulator enzyme expression of reactive oxygen species ( ROS ), This increase in the production of ROS induced a rise in apoptosis at germinal cell level, leading to a state of hypo‐spermatogenesis that may jeopardise masculine fertility. Therefore, the eventual development of oxidative stress in spermatogenic cells and consequently the spermatozoids of workers subjected to high altitude, either chronic or intermittent, turns out to be critical when it poses as an imminent risk to the viability and quality of the reproductive cells of workers subjected to intermittent hypobaric hypoxia.