This project explores the relationship of hard physical labor under natural conditions (Polish peasant women in a mountainous region), and fertility (specifically ovarian function as assayed by steroid levels in saliva). The working hypothesis is that, even with adequate diet, physical exertion can cause the suppression of what we think of as normal female ovarian cycling, which has been shown to be the case in female athletes in the U.S.A. The student will go to Poland in the winter to collect data during that seasonal period to compare already collected and analyzed materials from the summer, to see if seasonal variation in ovarian function exists among the harder working women. The working hypothesis is that their steroid levels will fluctuate with workload, while less hard working women's levels will remain roughly the same.
