ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Endocrinol.
Sec. Reproduction
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fendo.2025.1517318
This article is part of the Research TopicLifestyle and Environmental Factors and Human FertilityView all 19 articles
The relationship between dietary inflammation potential, dietary oxidative balance score, and female reproductive function: a mediation analysis of obesity indicators
Provisionally accepted
- 1School of Public Health, Hebei Medical University, Shijiazhuang, China
- 2Hebei Key Laboratory of Nutrition and Health, Shijiazhuang, China
- 3The First hospital of Hebei Medical University, Shijiazhuang, China
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Background: Dietary inflammation and oxidative stress have been linked to reproductive health, and weight gain has also been found to play an important role in female reproductive function specifically.In this study we explore the effects of dietary inflammatory index (DII) and dietary oxidative balance score (DOBS) on infertility and sex hormones, and clarify the mediating role of obesity on these effects.Methods: A total of 1,774 subjects from the 2013-2016 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) were selected. The DII and DOBS were determined by aggregating data on 26 and 17 dietary components obtained by dietary recall, respectively. Infertility (yes or no, selfreported in questionnaire) and serum gonadal hormones including total testosterone (TT), estradiol (E2), and sex hormone-binding globulin (SHBG) were considered as main outcome variables.Multivariate logistic regression and restricted cubic splines (RCS) were applied for further analysis, and mediation models were constructed to figure out the mediating role of obesity indicators.The prevalence of infertility among American women of childbearing age was 12.66 %.There were significant linear relationships between the DII and DOBS, and infertility and serum SHBG (p for overall < 0.05). Consuming foods with higher DII was significantly associated with higher risk of infertility (OR: 1.86; 95% CI: 1.20-2.89) and lower levels of SHBG (β: -9.98; 95% CI:-19.45--0.51). Compared to the lowest DOBS category, the adjusted beta estimates for SHBG and E2 were 12.03 (95% CI: 2.01-22.04) and 134.58 (95% CI: 3.46-266.24) in the highest DOBS group. However, anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidative diets reduced the risk of infertility by 51% and increased SHBG levels by 14.54 nmol/L. Interestingly, obesity indicators mediated the associations of dietary inflammation and oxidative stress potential with infertility and SHBG.Conclusions: Dietary inflammation and oxidative stress are strongly associated with the risk of infertility and serum SHBG levels, indicating that anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidative diets may mitigate fertility disorders that result from obesity.
Keywords: Dietary inflammation, Infertility, Oxidative Stress, national Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), Mediation analysis
Received: 25 Oct 2024; Accepted: 23 Apr 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Liang, Wu, Xie, Wang, Luo, Xue and Li. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Hongmei Xue, Hebei Key Laboratory of Nutrition and Health, Shijiazhuang, China
Zengning Li, The First hospital of Hebei Medical University, Shijiazhuang, China
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