What causes Low Sperm Count? The environment is playing a key role.

What causes Low Sperm Count? Are average  Sperm count levels for men going down?  Many studies over the years have suggested that t that global semen quality is declining. This has been confirmed over the years in many countries where epidemiological studies have been performed on average sperm counts.

A great way to study the state of affairs is the study of sperm counts of sperm donors. Sperm donors are just young men with no known fertility problems so  average sperm donor counts should be representative of what is going on in the overall population.

In this study out of Israel  the investigators compared what percentage of donor spem applicants were rejected because their sperm count was too low. What they discovered was that significantly more sperm donor applicants were below the acceptable values today compared to 15 years ago. This is despite the fact that over the past 7 years we have significantly lowered the standards.The authors conclude that : " If the old strict criteria were in place 88% of candidates would be rejected today" .

What is the cause of the decline in sperm count. There is no question that the environment intended both as environmental toxicants and inadequate diet is playing a major role.

I*s there any way to offset these environmental effects: there is no doubt that adequate supplementation with powerful antioxidants and minerals  can offset some of the deleterious effects of the world we live in.

Abstract Below

Despite the lowering of criteria for sperm parameters satisfactory for donation that were implemented in 2004, 38% of applicants for sperm donation are now rejected based on semen quality as compared to a third of applicants 10-15 years ago (P < 0.001). If the old strict criteria were in place 88% of candidates would be rejected today (P < 0.0001). Over the study period, the average sperm parameters dropped from a concentration of 106 +/- 25 million spermatozoa/ml with 79% +/- 4.3% motility to 68 +/- 14 million/ ml with 66% +/- 4.5% motile sperm (P < 0.0001, P < 0.0001, respectively). The total motile sperm count per ejaculate also decreased, from 66.4 +/- 18.2 million to 48.7 +/- 12 million (P < 0.005). When the previous criteria were implemented for the analysis of the latest group of sperm donors, only 18% of donors had an acceptable sperm quality, with an average concentration of 87 +/- 12 million spermatozoa/ml, 73% +/- 2.6% motile sperm and total motile sperm count of 53.1 +/- 3.8 million per ejaculate - still significantly lower than 15 years ago (P= 0.01, P= 0.003, P= 0.058 respectively).CONCLUSIONS:
The rapid deterioration of sperm quality among fertile semen donors is alarming

Haimov-Kochman R, Har-Nir R, Ein-Mor E, Ben-Shoshan V, Greenfield C, Eldar I, Bdolah Y, Hurwitz A. Is the quality of donated semen deteriorating? Findings from a 15 year longitudinal analysis of weekly sperm samples. Israel Medical Association Journal. 2012. Jun;14(6):372-7.

Smoking and Alcohol and Male Fertility

No significant association was found  in a study  correlating sperm count with with smoking and alcohol consumption or the use of recreational drugs, a high BMI or having a history of mumps or fever.

The study, which is published in the journal Human Reproduction, compared 900 men with low sperm counts to 1,300 with high sperm counts. Turns out, use of drugs, tobacco, and alcohol had little effect when comparing the populations, nor did being overweight.
The only thing that made a big difference was how snug pants and underwear were.
The study did not take into account the factors that , i believe , are the most important for male fertility: environmental exposure to toxicant chemical agents such as pesticides.

Supplements, Sperm And Male Fertility : Study

Scientific publications that have shunned natural medicine for years are recently publishing more and more articles  on the topic  of nutrition , supplementation and disease.
 We review an article from an Indian group that reviewed the impact of a combination of  supplements not only on sperm quality, but also on outcome off IVF with ICSI.

This article, authored by B. Gosh et al. is relevant in that it measured buth improvement in semen parameters as well as pregnancy outcome with ICSI.

The treatment included a combination of Vitamin B12, Vitamin C, Folic acid, Zn, L-carnitine, Coenzyme Q -10 and Lycopene.

Findings were as follows

Significant increase in percentage of sperms with positive modified HOS test (54.3 ± 12.7 vs. 58.9 ± 13.3) and marginal increase in percentage of sperms with acrosomal integrity was observed in post treated samples. Percentage of spermatozoa with damaged or fragmented DNA showed a reduction (20.1 ± 5.9 vs. 18.8 ± 5.1). Fertilization rate increased significantly (23.4 ± 7.8 vs. 66.2 ± 8.5) while pregnancy outcome showed a statistically insignificant improvement (20.3% to 29%).

I find it very relevant that the pregnancy outcome showed a positive trend ( although not statistically significant) in this very difficult group of patients.

This is the kind of study  that we need to see. There is a body of scientific  evidence that suggest that natural supplements may enhance sperm quality in azoospermic men and thereby improve pregnancy outcome.  We now need the full support of the scientific and the medical community to create some good studies and further confirm these very positive findings.

You can find the article from the Journal "Fertility and Sterility" , here