I treat at least a couple of ‘infertility’ cases per day in the clinic using both acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine to improve physiological health and thus increase success rates for fertility. However, it drives me nuts that 90% of the time, when there is a sperm-carrying partner, he does not come in for an appointment. All the onus of infertility is put on the woman when, 50% of the time, there is a male factor preventing a successful pregnancy. Even fertility clinics do not care much about sperm if there is a good semen analysis. A semen analysis does not tell us anything about the chromosomal health of the sperm, which can be measured with various types of DNA fragmentation tests. “Routine semen analysis does not assess all aspects of sperm quality. [Sperm DNA Fragmentation] is used to assess the integrity of sperm chromatin and may be a better predictor of male fertility and reproductive outcomes than conventional semen parameters.”
Sperm respond quicker to the environment than ova, both in a negative and positive way. On the positive side, it has been shown in the FERTINUTS study that diet changes can improve sperm DNA and overall semen analysis rather quickly. A 14-week study of 119 ‘healthy’ men ages 18-35 randomized into two groups. It takes about 72-75 days to go through the process of spermatogenesis to ejaculate. Fourteen weeks is 98 days. One group was fed the usual Western-style diet enriched with 60 g of a mixture of nuts/d (nut group), and the other was fed the typical Western-style diet avoiding nuts (control group). What they found was nuts. Compared with the control group, improvements in total sperm count, vitality, total motility, progressive motility, and sperm morphology were observed in the nut group. Participants in the nut group showed a significant reduction in sperm DNA fragmentation as well.
My Thoughts
There are many seedy journals with questionable studies, but this was not one of them. It was published in the well-respected American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. I think it is fantastic (or nuts) that the only change in diet was adding more nutrition. But by adding in the nuts, those participants increased total fat consumption, monounsaturated fatty acids, polyunsaturated fatty acids, magnesium, vitamin E, α-linolenic acid, and total omega-3 (n–3). This also improved their ω-3:ω-6 ratio intake during the intervention. Those nutritional changes improved their semen quality in 14 weeks, which is impressive.
The one caveat is that these were younger men under 35 years old. It is known that older men, indeed over 40, carry way more inflammatory baggage and poorer sperm counts, as well as an increased risk of infertility. With that said, I bet changes could be made to older sperm. In addition, it is never too late to start eating a healthier diet.
Contact me for a Chinese Medicine fertility consultation. Also, please visit my other site for more information.