ASRM: Healthy Diet Boosts Semen Quality - MedPage Today
- Note that these studies were published as abstracts and were presented at a conference. These data and conclusions should be considered to be preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.
- Explain that young men who consume a diet of grains, fruits, and vegetables, and avoid transfats, are more likely to have more motile sperm in their semen.
- Note that in another study, higher sperm concentrations were seen with lower trans-fatty acid consumption, although the sperm concentrations in the higher trans-fatty acid concentrations were within the normal range.
ORLANDO -- Young men who consume a diet of grains, fruits, and vegetables, and avoid trans fats, are more likely to have more motile sperm in their semen, researchers reported here.
Men who had the lowest consumption of a "prudent diet" were found to have a 56.2% sperm motility rate, said Audrey Gaskins, a PhD candidate at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston. She said that men who had a higher consumption level of this diet had a sperm motility rate of 62.5 %.
The trend toward better motility was statistically significant (P=0.04), Gaskins said at the annual meeting of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine. However, she said there was no difference for other parameters of semen quality, specifically sperm concentration or sperm morphology, according to the cross-sectional study.
"Motility is one of the more important parameters of semen quality," said Edward D. Kim, MD, from the University of Tennessee Graduate School of Medicine in Knoxville.
Kim, president of the Society for Male Reproduction and Urology, told MedPage Today, "these results are intriguing; however, eating healthy is not the only factor in being able to father children."
Gaskins also analyzed how eating a "Western diet" -- rich in red and processed meats as well as snacks and sweets -- impacted semen. Her group found that "adherence to a Western diet was unrelated to semen parameters after adjustment for total calorie intake."
Her study included 188 men, ages 18 to 22, recruited at the University of Rochester, N.Y., for the Rochester Young Men's study.
In a second study, other Harvard researchers examined the intake of trans-fatty acids and its effect on semen quality among men attending a fertility clinic.
Jorge Chavarro, MD, ScD, reported that men with the lowest level of trans-fatty acids as a percent of calories (0.7%) had average sperm concentrations of about 79 million/ml while those with the highest levels had sperm concentration of about 48 million/ml. (P=0.03)
While the sperm concentrations were lower with higher trans-fatty acid concentrations, Chavarro said that the levels seen in his study were within the normal range.
"Intake of trans-fatty acids was associated with lower sperm concentrations but was unrelated to motility or morphology," he said, adding that the findings are consistent with previous animal studies on the interaction between trans-fatty acids and spermatogenesis.
He said that trans-fatty acids tend to accumulate, and researchers are not sure if they remain sequestered in sperm, or other tissues, for weeks, months, or even years.
"We are starting to get a better idea of how nutrition affects fertility, but we still have a lot to learn," he said.
Kim said Chavarro's results were also interesting, but the number of patients in the study -- the researchers analyzed semen from 23 men -- was a limitation. "There is great variability in sperm concentrations even from day to day," he said. "Clearly, larger studies are needed to confirm these results."
Gaskins and Chavarro had no financial disclosures.
Kim has received grants for clinical research from Genentech, Eli Lilly, Abbott, sanofi-aventis, and AstraZeneca.
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