Maternal vitamin D levels and male reproductive health: a population-based follow-up study

Publikation: Bidrag til tidsskrift › Tidsskriftartikel › Forskning › fagfællebedømt

Maternal vitamin D levels during pregnancy may be important for reproductive health in male offspring by regulating cell proliferation and differentiation during development. We conducted a follow-up study of 827 young men from the Fetal Programming of Semen Quality (FEPOS) cohort, nested in the Danish National Birth Cohort to investigate if maternal vitamin D levels were associated with measures of reproductive health in adult sons. These included semen characteristics, testes volume, and reproductive hormone levels and were analysed according to maternal vitamin D (25(OH)D3) levels during pregnancy. In addition, an instrumental variable analysis using seasonality in sun exposure as an instrument for maternal vitamin D levels was conducted. We found that sons of mothers with vitamin D levels < 25 nmol/L had 11% (95% CI − 19 to − 2) lower testes volume and a 1.4 (95% CI 1.0 to 1.9) times higher risk of having low testes volume (< 15 mL), in addition to 20% (95% CI − 40 to 9) lower total sperm count and a 1.6 (95% CI 0.9 to 2.9) times higher risk of having a low total sperm count (< 39 million) compared with sons of mothers with vitamin D levels > 75 nmol/L. Continuous models, spline plots and an instrumental variable analysis supported these findings. Low maternal vitamin D levels were associated with lower testes volume and lower total sperm count with indications of dose-dependency. Maternal vitamin D level above 75 nmol/L during pregnancy may be beneficial for testes function in adult sons.
OriginalsprogEngelsk
TidsskriftEuropean Journal of Epidemiology
Vol/bind38
Sider (fra-til)469–484
Antal sider16
ISSN0393-2990
DOI
StatusUdgivet - 2023

Bibliografisk note

Funding Information:
This publication is part of the ReproUnion collaborative study, co-financed by the European Union, Intereg V ÖKS (20200407). The FEPOS project was also funded by the Lundbeck Foundation (R170-2014-855), the Capital Region of Denmark, Region Skåne, and the Medical Faculty at Lund University, Sweden, Medical doctor Sofus Carl Emil Friis and spouse Olga Doris Friis's Grant, Axel Muusfeldt’s Foundation (2016-491), AP Møller Foundation (16-37), the Health Foundation and Dagmar Marshall’s Fond. In addition, this study was supported by Aarhus University and Independent Research Fund Denmark (9039-00128B). We are grateful to all participants and to biomedical laboratory technicians Marianne Lipka Flensborg and Joan Dideriksen for running the clinics and collecting data. We also thank Josefine Rahbæk Larsen for assisting with recruitment and data entry, Lone Fredslund and Inge Eisensee for data management, Cecilia Tingsmark for conducting the morphology analysis, and Anna Rönnholm, Marie Bengtsson, and Åsa Amilon at the Division of Occupational and Environmental Medicine at Lund University, Sweden, for performing the analyses of 25(OH)D. The Danish National Birth Cohort (DNBC) was established with a significant grant from the Danish National Research Foundation. Additional support was obtained from the Danish Regional Committees, the Pharmacy Foundation, the Egmont Foundation, the March of Dimes Birth Defects Foundation, the Health Foundation and other minor grants. The DNBC Biobank has been supported by the Novo Nordisk Foundation and the Lundbeck Foundation. Follow-up of mothers and children have been supported by the Danish Medical Research Council (SSVF 0646, 271-08-0839/06-066023, O602-01042B, 0602-02738B), the Lundbeck Foundation (195/04, R100-A9193), The Innovation Fund Denmark 0603-00294B (09-067124), the Nordea Foundation (02-2013-2014), Aarhus Ideas (AU R9-A959-13-S804), University of Copenhagen Strategic Grant (IFSV 2012), and the Danish Council for Independent Research (DFF – 4183-00594 and DFF—4183-00152). 3

Funding Information:
This publication is part of the ReproUnion collaborative study, co-financed by the European Union, Intereg V ÖKS (20200407). The FEPOS project was further funded by the Lundbeck Foundation (R170-2014-855), the Capital Region of Denmark, Region Skåne, and the Medical Faculty at Lund University, Sweden, Medical doctor Sofus Carl Emil Friis and spouse Olga Doris Friis’s Grant, Axel Muusfeldt’s Foundation (2016-491), AP Møller Foundation (16-37), the Health Foundation and Dagmar Marshall’s Fond. In addition, this study was supported by Aarhus University and Independent Research Fund Denmark (9039-00128B).

Publisher Copyright:
© 2023, Springer Nature B.V.

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