Stress and Fertility
How a connection made on a whim in Scotland became a full-fledged research project
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By Jennifer Anderson
Theresa Hardy was in the thick of working on her doctorate in the College of Nursing when she visited her sister, who was studying for her own doctorate in Scotland. While there, and almost on a whim, she reached out to a professor at the Queen’s Medical Research Institute whose work had loomed large in her own research, reproductive endocrinologist Dr. Richard Anderson. He agreed to meet with her for a half hour at his out-of-the-way Edinburgh office.
Although they’d never spoken before, this brief meeting was the start of a fruitful collaboration. Hardy’s doctoral program focus is on how stress can affect women’s fertility, and Anderson had written some seminal papers on female reproductive potential. In addition, he had something researchers in the field treasure: a ready population of women who were already part of a long-term fertility study. Anderson was so intrigued by Hardy’s research that he invited her on the spot to return for a longer stay in Scotland working alongside his team.
With the invitation from Anderson and support from her adviser at Marquette, Dr. Donna McCarthy, professor of nursing, Hardy applied for and received a prestigious National Research Service Award from the National Institutes of Health. The grant enabled her to spend a year in Scotland and Ireland, both working with Anderson investigating results from the women in his study and teaching at University College Dublin’s nursing school. A grant from the Oncology Nursing Society Foundation also supports her work.
Hardy’s work examines how elevated levels of cortisol, the main hormone released by the adrenal gland in response to stress, can impact women’s reproductive potential over time. Using cutting-edge techniques that gauge cortisol levels in saliva and hair, she can determine whether the subject has experienced chronic stress. Hardy then homes in on a protein hormone secreted by follicles in the ovaries — the Anti-Müllerian Hormone or AMH — which is a molecular biomarker of reproductive potential because it reflects the size of women’s egg supply, or “ovarian reserve.” (Since all of the women in Anderson’s longitudinal study are cancer survivors, cancer treatments are one potential source of chronic stress in their lives.)
Aiming to better identify which women may be at the highest risk for infertility, Hardy also wants to understand what can be done to reduce that risk. “Infertility affects 15 percent of women in the United States, but we still don’t really understand what causes it. Ultimately, if we can predict the risks of infertility, we can tailor treatment protocols to reduce them.”
This story is part of a three-part series on grad student research at Marquette University. Read more here.
