Being overweight or obese could lower the quality of men’s sperm, study finds

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New research has found that maintaining a healthy weight could help boost the quality of a man’s sperm.

Carried out by a team at the Rovira i Virgili University in Spain, along with researchers from the University of Utah (United States), the Ahvaz Jundishapur University (Iran), and the National University of Córdoba (Argentina), the study looked at 88 existing articles which investigated how weight — including being low weight, normal weight, overweight or obese — could affect a man’s sperm quality.

The findings, published in the journal Obesity Reviews, showed that being overweight and/or obesity were both associated with various measurements of low semen quality including semen volume, sperm count and concentration, sperm vitality (the percentage of living healthy sperm in semen), total motility (the ability of sperm to move efficiently) and normal morphology (the shape of the sperm).

The results also showed that being underweight was also associated with low sperm normal morphology.

The researchers said that their review is the most comprehensive analysis to date of the existing research and suggests that maintaining a healthy body weight could be important for increasing sperm quality and potentially a man’s fertility, particularly significant given that infertility affects between 10 and 15 percent of all couples of reproductive age.

Recent research has found that sperm quality can also be boosted by taking supplements of selenium, zinc, omega-3, coenzyme-Q10 and carnitines, which have been shown to improve sperm mobility and morphology.

A small trial found that eating 60 grams of almonds, hazelnuts, and walnuts daily significantly improved sperm count, vitality, motility and morphology, while research published last year also showed that eating a healthy diet and avoiding sugar could improve sperm quality within just two weeks. IB

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