Fats nutrients can reduce your sperms

Gentlemen, you may want to hold the bacon. A new study suggests that eating a high-fat diet may be associated with lower sperm quality.

The study, published online in the European journal Human Reproduction, found that men who ate diets higher in saturated fat had lower sperm counts and concentration than men who consumed less fat. But men who consumed more omega-3 fatty acids — healthy fats found in fish and plant oils — had better formed sperm.

Researchers looked at 99 American men in their mid-30s who were participating in an ongoing study on fertility and environment, at the Massachusetts General Hospital Fertility Center. From December 2006 to August 2010, the researchers questioned the men about their diet and analyzed their semen samples.

The men were divided into three groups based on their total fat intake. The men in highest third of fat consumption (at least 37% of their total calories) had a 43% lower sperm count and 38% lower sperm concentration than the men with the lowest fat intake.

Saturated fats appear to be the star culprit behind poor sperm quality in this study. Men who consumed the most saturated fat (at least 13% of their daily calories) had a 35% lower total sperm count and a 38% lower sperm concentration than the men consuming the lowest levels.

Men who ate the most omega-3 fatty acids, however, had more correctly formed sperm.

According to Dr. Richard Sharpe of the Medical Research Council’s Human Reproductive Sciences Unit at the University of Edinburgh, for normal functionality, sperm depend on their plasma membrane, which is mainly composed of fats. “It is therefore not unreasonable to imagine that the type of fats in the diet may affect sperm membrane fat composition which, in turn, may affect sperm function. To an extent, we are what we eat,” he said in an email statement. Dr. Sharpe is the deputy editor of Human Reproduction and is unaffiliated with the study.
Men who eat a lot of fatty foods have lower quality sperm than men who avoid them, a new study found.

Saturated fat, the stuff in meat and dairy foods, was associated with lower sperm counts. The men eating the most saturated fat had 35 percent fewer sperm than men eating the least.

On the bright side, the men who ate more omega-3 fats — the kind found in fish and some plants — had slightly more sperm that were correctly formed than their brethren who ate less.

The results, though preliminary, suggest there's something men can do to boost the odds their sperm are up to their evolutionary task: eat better.

"Men really have very few things that they can modify with regards to fertility," says Jill Attaman, an assistant professor at Dartmouth Medical School, and a fertility specialist at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in New Hampshire. She was the lead author on the study, which was just published in Human Reproduction.

Scientists have only recently started looking at how lifestyle factors like diet and exercise affect men's fertility. Known risks including smoking, heavy use of alcohol and recreational drugs, and heat on the testicles.

This study doesn't say if the men's diet caused the decline in sperm count. It just says they may be connected.

The 99 men in this study were all clients at fertility clinics. They filled out a questionnaire listing what they ate.

Male infertility is common. It affects 10 to 15 percent of couples. When a couple has difficulty conceiving a child, about one-third of the time the problem is with the man, and one-third of the time it's with the woman.

Almost three-quarters of the men in the Dartmouth study were overweight or obese. Attaman says she doesn't know what role that plays in their fertility, but the number's similar to men in the general population. And previous studies have found that being obese can hurt male fertility.

Eating better might not just have benefits for men's reproductive health, Attaman says, but could be better all ways around.

Indeed. Yesterday, NPR's Allison Aubrey reported on how eating meat may increases a person's risk of death.
“Diets containing higher amounts of omega-3 fat and lower amounts of saturated fat are associated with favorable semen quality parameters and may be beneficial to male reproductive health,” says study author Dr. Jill Attaman, professor of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive biology at Harvard Medical School. “Although these findings need to be reproduced, adapting these nutritional modifications may not only be beneficial for reproductive health but for global general health as well. Given the impact infertility has worldwide, many men as well as couples may benefit from such lifestyle changes.”

The new study has its limits. For starters, the researchers acknowledge that the study sample was small and 71% of the participants were overweight or obese. Although previous research has associated obesity with poor sperm quality, the researchers were able to control for this factor. ”We were able to isolate the independent effects of fat intake from those of obesity using statistical models,” said Dr. Attaman in a statement. “The frequency of overweight and obesity among men in this study does not differ much from that among men in the general population in the U.S.A.”