French have less and less sperm

Must French men fear for their fertility?

06.12.2012

In France, the number of sperm has decreased by one third. Do French men have to fear for their fertility? According to a recent study, especially men in the Paris region are affected. Environmental factors and industrial chemicals could be responsible for the dramatic reduction in sperm counts.

Quality of sperm also decreases
More than 26,600 men participated in the large-scale nationwide study in France, which came to a dramatic conclusion: the number of sperm cells has fallen by a third over the past 17 years. „There was a significant and continuous reduction in sperm concentration of 32.2 percent during the duration of the study“, the researchers report in the journal „Human Reproduction ". „Projections indicate that the average concentration of a 35-year-old man sank from 73.6 million per milliliter in 1989 to an average of 49.9 million in 2005.“ A value of less than 55 million sperm per milliliter of sperm can negatively affect the fertility, as some studies have shown. Sperm with a concentration of less than 15 million sperm is considered infertile.

„A significant but unquantifiable decline in sperm counts with morphologically normal forms was also observed during the 17 years“, the scientists write further. Possibly, the quality of semen in France has been decreasing since the 1970s. It is a question „serious warning sign“. According to the authors of the study, "the study is the most important and largest of its kind in France, possibly also worldwide".

Return of sperm due to environmental and disturbing factors
For some years, scientists have been responsible for the decline in sperm counts due to environmental or disruptive factors. Above all, pesticides and plasticizers are said to have a negative impact on fertility. However, it is difficult to identify a single substance since humans today are usually exposed to several health-endangering factors, said reproductive expert Louis Bujan of Toulouse University Hospital. This could be a justification for why the Paris region, which has a large number of health-threatening disruptive factors, is particularly affected by the decline in sperm cells. Obesity and tobacco consumption also have a negative effect on sperm production.

Bisphenol A affects sperm
One of the interfering factors is the plasticizer „Bisphenol A“ (BPA), which is represented in many everyday products. "The effect of BPA is similar to that of the female hormone estrogen and thus influences the hormone balance of humans," some studies summed up. In November 2010, Chinese scientists presented a study demonstrating a link between BPA and decreased sperm production.

The researchers collected data from 218 workers in four different factories in China. The concentration of plasticizer BPA in the urine was measured by workers who did not come into contact with bisphenol A during the manufacturing process and others who had contact with BPA through their activity. Subsequently, these data were compared with the number of sperm, their mobility and shape. The researchers around Dr. De-Kun Li of the US insurance „Kaiser Permanente“ in Oakland, California evaluated the data.

The workers who were in daily contact with the chemical showed clearly higher risk factors. Her sperm, unlike the control group, was more than doubled in the risk of limited mobility and more than threefold in increased risk of lessening vitality. A fourfold increased risk was present for a greatly reduced number of sperm. However, an association between BPA and deformed sperm has not been established in the study.

High-fat food can make you infertile
A study by US researchers at Harvard Medical School and the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston may also explain infertility in men as being too high in saturated fat.

Like the researchers around Jill Attaman of Harvard Medical School in the journal „Human Reproduction“ In March of this year, their study showed that the number of sperm in men with particularly high fat consumption was significantly lower than that of the other study participants. This is due to the contained saturated fatty acids. The increased consumption of unsaturated omega-3 fatty acids, however, would have a positive impact on sperm production, which increased slightly, the researchers said. (Sb)

Also read:
Sperm can not smell
Being overweight reduces sperm quality
High-fat diet harms sperm quality
Men are becoming more and more barren

Image: Thommy Weiss