Tessandier N. auteur aut IRD Uysal I. B. auteur aut IRD Elie B. auteur aut IRD Selinger Christian auteur aut IRD Bernat C. auteur aut IRD Boue V. auteur aut IRD Grasset S. auteur aut IRD Groc S. auteur aut IRD Rahmoun M. auteur aut IRD Reyne B. auteur aut IRD Bender N. auteur aut IRD Bonneau M. auteur aut IRD Graf C. auteur aut IRD Tribout V. auteur aut IRD Foulongne V. auteur aut IRD Ravel J. auteur aut IRD Waterboer T. auteur aut IRD Hirtz C. auteur aut IRD Bravo I. G. auteur aut IRD Reynes J. auteur aut IRD Segondy M. auteur aut IRD Murall C. L. auteur aut IRD Boulle N. auteur aut IRD Kamiya T. auteur aut IRD Alizon S. auteur aut IRD text journalArticle eng text/pdf born digital access The vaginal ecosystem is a key component of women's health. It also represents an ideal system for ecologists to investigate the consequence of perturbations on species diversity and emerging properties between organizational levels. Here, we study how exposure to different types of menstrual products is linked to microbial, immunological, demographic, and behavioural measurements in a cohort of young adult women who reported using more often tampons (n = 107) or menstrual cups (n = 31). We first found that cup users were older and smoked less than tampon users. When analysing health indicators, we detected potential associations between cups use reporting and fungal genital infection. A multivariate analysis confirmed that in our cohort, reporting using cups over tampons was associated with the higher odds ratio to report a fungal genital infection diagnosis by a medical doctor within the last 3 months. We did not detect significant differences between groups in terms of their bacterial vaginal microbiota composition and found marginal differences in the level of expression of 20 cytokines. However, a multivariate analysis of these biological data identified some level of clustering based on the menstrual product type preferred (cups or tampons). These results suggest that exposure to different types of menstrual products could influence menstrual health. Larger studies and studies with a more powered setting are needed to assess the robustness of these associations and identify causal mechanisms. specialized epidemiology fungal infections immunity vaginal microbiota women's health 050 020 [Early access] [10 p.] 2022 0962-1083 https://www.documentation.ird.fr/hor/fdi:010086314 10.1111/mec.16678 0962-1083 [F B010086314] https://www.documentation.ird.fr/hor/fdi:010086314 https://www.documentation.ird.fr/intranet/publi/2022-11/010086314.pdf Accès réservé (Intranet de l'IRD) IRD - Base Horizon / Pleins textes 2022-11-09 2025-02-24 fdi:010086314 fre