Micronutrients intake is associated with improved sperm DNA quality in older men: Study

Do Vitamin and Minerals  affect  age-associated genomic damage?
This interesting study  that looked at whether lifestyle factors such as increased dietary intake of micronutrients reduce the risks of sperm DNA damage, and whether older men benefit more than younger men.

What are Micronutrients?  -->

Micronutrients are nutrients required by our bodies to carry out key functions. They include dietary trace minerals or trace elements include  iron, cobalt, chromium, copper, iodine, manganese, selenium, zinc and molybdenum. Micronutrients also include vitamins, which are organic compounds.

The most important finding of the study is below:

  Older men (>44 years) with the highest vitamin C intake had approximately 20% less sperm DNA damage compared with older men with the lowest intake, with similar findings for vitamin E and zinc. The older men with the highest intake of these micronutrients showed levels of sperm damage that were similar to those of the younger men.

  Why is this study  important? We know from other studies  that,  as men age, their sperm becomes more damaged , and this damage may lead to an increase of genetic diseases, including autism ( although this hypothesis is still being questioned).

As usual you can find the original article by following this Link.

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