Written by Jamie Stowe| Tuesday, 25 October 2011| There is 1 comment
were seen to have sperm with statistically significant greater motility
At Ukmedix News we have written previously about the link between being overweight or being a smoker and having poor sperm quality. New evidence from the Harvard School of Public Health shows however that there is a direct link between the quality of food you eat and its nutritional value and the quality of your semen. For example the researchers saw that those men who observed a diet which contained a lot of red meat and processed grains had significantly impaired sperm motility when compared to those men who followed healthier diets which contained fruit, vegetables and natural whole grains.
The study involved a group of young men between the age of 18 and 22 and they were put into two different groups depending on the nutritional quality and health value of their diet. The researchers then examined various sperm quality indicators such as sperm concentration, sperm morphology and sperm motility to come up with an overall sperm quality ranking.
Audrey J. Gaskins who led this study for the Harvard School of Public Health explained that following an unhealthy western diet had no link to any of the good semen quality parameters that were set, but those men who followed the healthier diet were seen to have sperm with statistically significant greater motility. This means that the sperm of these men had a greater likelihood of reaching the female egg. The men following the healthy diet did not have a greater sperm concentration or morphology.
Audrey Gaskins explained that it was possible that the reason for this greater sperm motility in healthy eaters was to do with the benefits of antioxidants found in fruit and vegetables. Her research which was released at the annual meeting of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine is likely to lead to further research which will conclusively prove that healthy eating leads to greater male fertility.
Healthy eating has already been shown to improve erectile function which in itself has an impact on male fertility.
