Smoking, haptoglobin and fertility in humans

A prospective study on two samples of consecutive puerperae (total n degrees 667) from two populations has been carried out in order to investigate the possible effect of smoking habit on relationship between fertility and haptoglobin phenotype.In both populations the negative association previously reported between age of pueperae and Haptoglobin *1/*1 phenotype is present only in women with smoking habit pointing to an interaction between Hp and smoke on human fertility. This suggests that the effects of smoke on fertility are dependent on the Hp phenotype.