This Article  • References  • Full text PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in JAMA  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

Julia H. Hauger-Klevene, MD, PhD
University of Buenos Aires Medical School

Emma C. Balossi, MD, MSPH
Ministry of Public Health Buenos Aires

JAMA. 1986;255(1):35-36.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

To the Editor.—

We have just read the JAMA article entitled "Cigarette Smoking Associated With Delayed Conception,"¹ which showed that reduced fertility should be added to the growing list of reproductive hazards of cigarette smoking.

In support of their theory, we would like to present the results of a recent population study carried out in Zarate, Argentina, to evaluate cardiovascular risk factors. Among various factors, we measured serum prolactin levels.

The results of the evaluation of 73 normotensive men aged 30 to 59 years demonstrated that smoking increases serum prolactin levels significantly (P<.001) and the rise is related to the number of cigarettes smoked per day. In contrast, ex-smokers have prolactin levels similar to those observed in nonsmokers (Table).

The relationship between smoking and decreased conception² may be due to the effect of smoking on prolactin secretion. Hyperprolactinemic men have been reported to have smaller testes and . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?