Can cadmium from contaminated food damage a woman's ovaries?

What's actually in it

Cadmium is a toxic heavy metal that gets into the food supply through contaminated soil, fertilizers, and industrial pollution. The foods with the highest cadmium levels include rice, leafy greens like spinach and lettuce, root vegetables like potatoes and carrots, shellfish, and organ meats. Cigarette smoke is another major source.

Your body absorbs cadmium slowly and eliminates it even more slowly. It has a half-life of 10 to 30 years, meaning it builds up over a lifetime of exposure.

What the research says

A 2026 study in Ecotoxicol Environ Saf investigated how cadmium damages ovarian function. The researchers identified a specific type of cell death called ferroptosis as the main mechanism.

Ferroptosis is driven by iron-dependent oxidative damage to cell membranes. Cadmium disrupted the ovaries' natural antioxidant defenses, allowing iron to trigger a chain reaction of lipid peroxidation that destroyed ovarian cell membranes. The result was death of granulosa cells, the support cells that surround and nourish developing eggs.

Without healthy granulosa cells, egg development stalls. The study found that cadmium-exposed ovaries produced fewer mature eggs and had lower levels of estrogen and progesterone, hormones essential for fertility and menstrual cycle regularity.

You can't avoid cadmium entirely since it's in common foods. But you can reduce your load by varying your diet (don't rely too heavily on rice or leafy greens from a single source), choosing lower-cadmium grains like oats and quinoa, and avoiding smoking.