Ovarian reserve in women with obesity

Abstract

BACKGROUND: One of the consequences of obesity for the female body is a decrease in fertility. It is shown that impaired reproductive function in obese patients can be associated, in particular, with a decrease in ovarian reserve.
 AIMS: To evaluate the ovarian reserve function in female patients of reproductive age with different classes of obesity in comparison with women without obesity.
 MATERIALS AND METHODS: This study evaluated 320 caucasian women, age 20-30 years, without obesity (BMI30, n=80) and with obesity WHO class I-III (n=80 per class). Anthropometrics, serum concentrations of anti-Mullerian hormone (AMH), inhibin B, follicle stimulating hormone (FSH), luteinizing hormone (LH), estradiol, progesterone, and testosterone were compared on the 2-3 day of menstrual cycle as ovarian volume and antral follicle count (AFC).
 RESULTS: We reveal statistically significant difference in following parameters in normal BMI women in comparison with obesity women: AMH, testosterone, ovarian volume and AFC. Moreover, we reveal significant difference between patients with different WHO class of obesity. But even in class III obesity parameters remained within reference ranges.
 CONCLUSIONS: Ovarian reserve function parameters progressively decrease with increase of obesity class in subjects, but ovarian reserve parameters were in normal reference range even in class III obese patients. Further large randomized multicenter studies are required to find influence of obesity in relation to ethnicity and other factors to ovarian reserve function.