Pollution, Smoking Behind Declining Sperm Counts

Men’s reproductive capacity has fallen drastically in recent decades - and a new analysis of 27,000 studies has revealed the factors that pose the biggest risk to sperm quality, Luke Hurst reported for Euronews.

Photo Insert: Pollution, smoking, age, and certain health conditions were found to have the greatest effect on sperm count deterioration.

Sperm counts around the world have halved over the past 50 years, with the pace of decline more than doubling since 2000, according to recent research on male fertility.

Researchers at Semmelweis University in Hungary dug deeper into the findings of nearly 27,000 studies to determine the biggest causes of the deterioration of sperm cells and found pollution, smoking, age, and certain health conditions to have the greatest effect.

Their findings were published in the journal Reproductive Biology and Endocrinology.

The functionality of sperm cells is tested by “DNA fragmentation analysis,” currently the only evidence-based test to make the determination, explained Dr. Zsolt Kopa, head of the Andrology Centre at the Department of Urology at Semmelweis University.

"It examines their DNA content, namely the proportion of intact or fragmented genetic material in the sperm. The more fragmented the DNA, the less the sperm’s ability to fertilize. It can also increase the risk of miscarriage," he said.

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