Acute stress may induce ovulation in women
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REVIEW
Acute stress may induce ovulation in women Review
Juan J Tarín*1, Toshio Hamatani2 and Antonio Cano3
Abstract Background: This study aims to gather information either supporting or rejecting the hypothesis that acute stress may induce ovulation in women. The formulation of this hypothesis is based on 2 facts: 1) estrogen-primed postmenopausal or ovariectomized women display an adrenal-progesterone-induced ovulatory-like luteinizing hormone (LH) surge in response to exogenous adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) administration; and 2) women display multiple follicular waves during an interovulatory interval, and likely during pregnancy and lactation. Thus, acute stress may induce ovulation in women displaying appropriate serum levels of estradiol and one or more follicles large enough to respond to a non-midcycle LH surge. Methods: A literature search using the PubMed database was performed to identify articles up to January 2010 focusing mainly on women as well as on rats and rhesus monkeys as animal models of interaction between the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) and hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal (HPG) axes. Results: Whereas the HPA axis exhibits positive responses in practically all phases of the ovarian cycle, acute-stressinduced release of LH is found under relatively high plasma levels of estradiol. However, there are studies suggesting that several types of acute stress may exert different effects on pituitary LH release and the steroid environment may modulate in a different way (inhibiting or stimulating) the pattern of response of the HPG axis elicited by acute stressors. Conclusion: Women may be induced to ovulate at any point of the menstrual cycle or even during periods of amenorrhea associated with pregnancy and lactation if exposed to an appropriate acute stressor under a right estradiol environment. Background It is known that the percentage of pregnancies resulting from single episodes of forced penile-vaginal intercourse (rape) is significantly higher (8.0% in a sample of 405 women from a national random-digit dialing sample of households in USA) than the percentage of pregnancies resulting from single episodes of consensual, unprotected intercourse (3.1% in a sample of 221 women with no fertility problems planning to become pregnant in USA) [1]. It is worth mentioning that data from the study by Gottschall and Gottschall [1] were adjusted for the use of oral contraception and intra-uterine devices (IUDs). Furthermore, Gottschall and Gottschall [1] elegantly ruled out the possibility that in their study higher rape-pregnancy rates may result from (1) women being more likely to report to medical or law-enforcement authorities rapes * Correspondence: [email protected] 1
Department of Functional Biology and Physical Anthropology, Faculty of Biological Sciences, University of Valencia, Burjassot, Valencia 46100, Spain
resulting in conception; (2) women sometimes attributing paternity to rapists when they were fertilized by a consensual partner; and (3) a high number of rape vic
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