When trying for a baby, it is widely accepted that prospective mothers should quit smoking.
But, now a new study adds weight to the evidence in favor of advising fathers to stub out their habit as well.
A team of Brazilian researchers found smoking damages a man’s sperm, in such a way that can make fertilization of his partner’s egg impossible.
Past research has shown that tobacco is linked to a decrease in sperm concentration as well as high sperm Deoxy ribonucleic Acid (DNA)/genetic material fragmentation or oxidative stress.
The new study, first published by DailyMailUK Online, added to a body of evidence, that suggest a man’s fertility is sensitive to environmental factors, including obesity, smoking, alcoholism and pollution.
The scientists, based at São Paulo Federal University, performed sperm function tests on 20 non-smoking men with normal sperm quality, as defined by the World Health Organization.
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And, the same tests were also performed on 20 smoking patients. All those taking part were aged between 20 and 50, researchers noted.
They assessed a number of factors, including semen volume, sperm concentration, sperm motility as well as sperm morphology.
The authors wrote: “In the present study, we showed that smoking has a detrimental effect on functional aspects of sperm.
“Smokers had a lower percentage of sperm with high DNA integrity, as well as higher percentages of sperm with mid- to high sperm DNA fragmentation, when compared with non-smokers.”
Sperm fragmentation can occur for a number of reasons. The most important of those is due to oxidative stress.
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