Association between childhood obesity and infertility in later life: a systematic review of cohort studies.

BACKGROUND: The global prevalence of childhood obesity has exhibited a troubling surge in recent years. Due to the raised questions regarding its potential correlation with infertility in adulthood, this systematic review has been undertaken to explore the relationships between childhood obesity, and infertility later in life. METHODS: A comprehensive search was performed in three international databases (PubMed, Web of Science, and Scopus). All cohort (retrospective or prospective), case-cohort, and nested case-control studies until April 2022 which assessed the association of obesity in children and adolescents with male and female infertility indicators in later life were included. The quality of the included studies was assessed by Newcastle-Ottawa quality assessment checklists. RESULT: Out of the initial 32,501 documents, eleven eligible studies with a total sample size of 498,980 participants were included. Five studies focused on the number of offspring and indicated that obesity, especially in adolescence had an association with later life lower number of children, nulliparity, and childlessness in both men and women. Concerning conceiving problems, two studies showed that obesity before age 12 increased the risk of female fertility problems in the future. Two studies reported that obesity in early life raised the risk of impaired female reproductive system such as menstrual or ovulatory problems. As well as females, a study discovered that obesity in men during their 20s was linked to an elevated risk of low sperm motility and poor sperm morphology. Another study has reported men with higher pre-pubertal BMI had lower sex hormone-binding globulin; however, the same association was not seen between childhood BMI and semen quality. CONCLUSION: The evidence suggests a positive association between childhood obesity with infertility indicators in later life. Childhood weight reduction strategies are suggested to be implemented in societies in order to reduce infertility rates in later life.

Association Between Childhood Obesity and Later Life Kidney Disorders: A Systematic Review.

Childhood obesity is considered one of the important risk factors for many long-term morbidities. However, the long-term consequences of childhood obesity on kidney function are largely unknown. In this systematic review, all prospective or retrospective cohort studies and nested case-control articles which investigated association of childhood obesity with later life kidney function were searched via some international databases including PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science and Google Scholar. After screening 6,843 published articles, 8 prospective cohorts studies were included in the qualitative synthesis. All the included studies were published in the last 10 years. The overall follow-up duration of studies ranged from 8 to 64 years. Out of 8 included studies, 6 reported a statistically significant positive association between higher BMI levels in early life and greater renal disease risk in later life. Evidence from various populations implicates a positive link between obesity in early life and kidney disease in later life.

Diagnostic importance of lung perfusion/ventilation scans in the evaluation of pulmonary embolism in COVID-19 patients: systematic review of the literature.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the outcomes of ventilation/perfusion scintigraphy on the diagnosis of pulmonary embolism in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients, we performed a systematic review of the available literature. MATERIALS AND METHODS: PubMed and Scopus were systematically searched up to 4 June 2022, for relevant studies. We included studies on patients with COVID-19 who have performed ventilation/perfusion scintigraphy for diagnosis of pulmonary embolism to describe any diagnosis outcome. Irrelevant and non-English articles were excluded. RESULTS: Overall, 27 articles were included in our review. The database search yielded studies from PubMed, Scopus, and studies identified through reviewing the reference list of included studies. Extracted information from the included studies could be categorized into several aspects: Diagnosis of pulmonary embolism with Q single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) CT, Tracheobronchial uptake, Diagnostic value of V/Q rather than Q at diagnosis pulmonary embolism, Different characteristics (morphological alterations) of COVID-19 in ventilation orperfusion scan, the prevalence of pulmonary embolism with Q or V/Q criteria, and Design of radiotherapy planning in lung cancer patients with COVID-19. CONCLUSION: Different perfusion patterns in COVID-19 are challenging but can be alleviated by adding SPECT/computed tomography (CT) to lung perfusion scans. Although perfusion only SPECT/CT can rule out or rule in others in considerable number of patients, ventilation scan is still needed in certain patients.