Epigenetic of Infertility

Infertility is a heterozygous disease that involves almost 22% of couples of reproductive age. The contribution of male and female is almost the same, and a lower percentage about 10% is related to cases with an unknown cause. The main causes of infertility are genetics and epigenetics.Stress affects the health of a person including fertility in differ-ent ways. Oxidative stress accumulates harmful free radicals in the gonads and induces negative effects like DNA breaks and point mutations on gametogenesis. Also, Sympathic adre-nal system (SAS) and hypothalamus pituitary adrenal (HPA) axes are two pathways that cause physiological changes due to stress. Oxidative stress leads methylation changes that alter the level of DNA density in embryonic gonads and its consequence gene expression.Lifestyle factors such as smoking, alcohol consumption, and poor nutrition can lead to infertility, development of human dis-eases, and pregnancy complications.It seems that by changes in lifestyle, overall health including reproductive health of each individual can be increased and the diseases that environmental factors have high impact on them could be prevented.