Ecological determinants of luteal reproductive function

流产是妇女生育生活中经常发生的一种灾难性事件，但人们对流产的原因知之甚少。 已知的是，早期妊娠的黄体期（受孕和着床的时间）不仅对成功的生殖至关重要，而且也是女性经历压力时首先受到抑制的阶段。这项研究利用人类学方法，将女性生殖功能和女性之间黄体期生物学的变化范围置于生态和发育背景下，重点关注处于中度能量和免疫功能压力下的人群。 研究结果将阐明人类黄体期变化的原因及其对生殖的影响，这些因素目前还不清楚。该项目将通过研究子宫内膜，胚胎植入的部位，从而促进对黄体期和流产研究的更深入了解。通过关注波兰农村的非西方人口，获得了一个比较的视角，可以促进理解为什么美国妇女比其他国家的人经历更多的生殖障碍。该方法将子宫内膜置于生活在可变生态压力下的妇女所经历的压力的更广泛背景下，这些压力可能抑制其支持怀孕的能力。这也是有史以来第一次对女性进行研究。在整个月经周期的系统性生殖功能，因为它包括每天收集尿液用于生殖激素和压力生物标志物的分析，以及子宫内膜的超声，人口统计学数据和该人群中女性的身体测量。 因此，这项人群水平的研究将描述卵巢和子宫内膜在能量和免疫应激的农业环境中的关系;研究这些应激源与黄体功能之间的关联;并提供一个纵向视角，可以探索出生体重和首次月经年龄等发育里程碑如何影响黄体功能。一旦分析了黄体卵巢和子宫内膜的基线正常变化，未来的研究将能够更全面地阐明压力源如何影响母体环境并导致流产。这项工作促进了对人类生物学的理解，远远超出了临床研究的范围，但在临床上可用于开发更安全，更有效的个性化激素避孕药，这些避孕药在给药结构中考虑了年龄，儿童状况和生活方式。它还将通过为代表性不足的学生提供结构化的指导计划，将研究纳入入门和高级课程，并通过使用PI作为屡获殊荣的博客的地位向公众广泛传播这种人类学观点和研究结果，来推进科学发现科学美国人。

The causes of miscarriage, an often devastating event that occurs not infrequently in women's reproductive lives, are poorly understood. What is known is that the luteal phase of early pregnancy (the time of conception and implantation) is not only critically important to successful reproduction, it also is the phase which is the first to be suppressed when women experience stress. This research utilizes an anthropological approach to place female reproductive functioning and the spectrum of variation in luteal phase biology between women into an ecological and developmental context, focusing on a human population under moderate levels of energetic and immune function stress. The results will illuminate the causal factors relating to human variation in the luteal phase and the resulting impacts on reproduction, which are poorly understood.This project will promote greater understanding by studying the endometrium, the site of embryo implantation and thus important to luteal phase and miscarriage research. By focusing on a non-western population in rural Poland, a comparative perspective is gained which can promote understanding of why American women experience reproductive disorders more than people in other countries. The approach places the endometrium in a broader context of the stressors experienced by women living under variable ecological stressors that may suppress its ability to support pregnancy. It also is the first-ever study of women?s systemic reproductive functioning over an entire menstrual cycle, since it includes daily urine collection for analysis of reproductive hormones and stress biomarkers, alongside ultrasound of the endometrium, demographic data, and bodily measurements of the women in this population. This population-level research therefore will characterize the relationship between the ovaries and endometrium in an energetically and immunologically stressed, agricultural environment; study the associations between these stressors and luteal function; and provide a longitudinal perspective which can explore how developmental milestones like birth weight and age at first menstruation influence luteal function. Once baseline, normal variation in the luteal ovaries and endometrium is analyzed, future studies will be able to more fully illuminate how stressors could affect the maternal environment and drive miscarriage. The work promotes understanding of human biology far beyond what can be gained in a clinical study, yet has clinical applications for the development of safer and more effective personalized hormonal contraceptives that consider age, childhood conditions and lifestyle in their dosing structure. It also will advance scientific discovery via a structured mentoring program for underrepresented students, incorporation of the research into introductory and advanced coursework, and by widely disseminating this anthropological perspective and research results to the general public using the PI's standing as an award-winning blogger at Scientific American.