Hello sperm fanatics,
more sex health stuff for those of you who want to nuture and caress your testicles. No surprises in this BBC report linking diet with sperm counts. Talking about diets and sperm counts, Kannon is on a diet with a very high sperm count in our members area, chomping through a queue of erupting guys!
But I digress. The moral of the story is, lay off the junk food if you don’t want your junk to turn into junk!
Semen Simon
Diet Linked to Low Sperm Count
BBC Report
A diet high in saturated fat has been linked with a reduced sperm count. A study of 99 men attending a US fertility clinic found those eating junk food diets had poorer sperm quality.
High intakes of omega-3 fatty acids, found in fish and plant oils, were associated with higher sperm concentration.
More work is needed to confirm the findings, the researchers report in the journal Human Reproduction.
The team, led by Prof Jill Attaman from Harvard Medical
School in Boston, questioned men about their diet and analysed sperm
samples over the course of four years.
Compared with those eating the least fat, men with the
highest fat intake had a 43% lower sperm count and 38% lower sperm
concentration (number of sperm per unit volume of semen).
Men consuming the most omega-3 fatty acids had sperm with a more normal structure than men with the lowest intake.
Prof Attaman said: “The magnitude of the association is quite
dramatic and provides further support for the health efforts to limit
consumption of saturated fat given their relation with other health
outcomes such as cardiovascular disease.”
However, 71% of participants were overweight or obese, which
could have had an impact on sperm quality. Furthermore, none of the men
had sperm counts or concentrations below the “normal” levels defined by
the World Health Organization of at least 39 million and 15 million per
millilitre.
Commenting on the research, British fertility expert Dr Allan
Pacey, of the University of Sheffield, said: “This is a relatively
small study showing an association between dietary intake of saturated
fats and semen quality.
“Perhaps unsurprisingly there appeared to be a reasonable
association between the two, with men who ate the highest levels of
saturated fats having the lowest sperm counts and those eating the most
omega-3 polyunsaturated fats having the highest.
“Importantly, the study does not show that one causes the
other and further work needs to be carried out to clarify this. But it
does add weight to the argument that having a good healthy diet may
benefit male fertility as well as being good general health advice.”
Source: www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-17353804