Quercetin action on health and female reproduction in mammals

Abstract

This paper reviews the current information concerning availability, metabolism of quercetin, its effects on physiological processes and illnesses with focus on the effects, mechanisms of action and areas of possible application of quercetin in control of female reproductive processes, prevention and treatment of their disorders in mammals.

The available information demonstrated the ability of quercetin and its analogues to inhibit proliferation and to promote apoptosis, to activate regenerative processes, to treat immune, inflammatory, cardiovascular, neurodegenerative, gastric and metabolic disorders and cancer, to suppress microorganisms, to protect bones and liver, to relieve pain, to improve physical and mental performance, and to prolong life span.

The positive influences of quercetin on mammalian female reproductive processes are well documented. It can promote ovarian follicullo- and oogenesis, improve quality of oocytes and embryos, increase fecundity in various species. These effects can be mediated by changes in pituitary and ovarian hormones, growth factors and cytokines, in their receptors and post-receptory signaling pathways. Due to these effect, quercetin can be applicable as biostimulator of reproduction, for prevention, mitigation and treatment of several female reproductive disorders, as well as to increase resistance of female reproductive system to adverse effect of chemotherapy, temperature stress and environmental contaminants.

Keywords:

• Quercetin
• nutrition
• health
• hormone
• ovary
• signaling
• female

Ethical statement

The present publication reviews the data published previously, therefore the restrictions concerning animal experiments and clinical studies are not applicable here.

Ethics approval and consent to participate

Not applicable. The performed studies did not required experiments on animals or humans. Therefore, they did not require study-specific approval by the appropriate ethics committee for research involving humans and/or animals, informed consent if the research involved human participants, and a statement on welfare of animals.

Authors’ contributions

The manuscript has been generated by one person - Alexander Sirotkin.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Data availability statement

The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Slovak Grant Agency of the Ministry of Education, Science and Sport and the Slovak Academy of Science (VEGA), project VEGA 1/0680/22.