From steroids to sexual lubricants, researchers have found many things that give sperm a hard time.
New research suggests that men who use anabolic steroids to bulk up their muscles, for example, may be compromising their ability to produce sperm 鈥� and risking their chance at fatherhood. The study is the first ever to investigate a group of men who are having difficulty conceiving and have a history of steroid use. 鈥淭he longer the steroid abuse, the more the likelihood of sterility,鈥� says Stanton Honig, at the University of Connecticut, US.
Honig and his colleague Justin Cohen, at Yale University, also in Connecticut, found that out of 15 patients with a history of steroid use, 11 showed low blood-hormone levels indicative of classic anabolic steroid-induced infertility.
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Of this 11 patients, nine 鈥渉ad absolutely no sperm in their ejaculate鈥�, says Honig 鈥� they had become azoospermic. 鈥淎nd the others had very little sperm.鈥� One of the men had stopped using steroids 19 years earlier, but five were still using and told to stop. Although fertility was restored in 7 of the azoospermic men, 2 remain sterile even after treatment.
The researchers call the illicit use of anabolic steroids a major public health problem. Most users 鈥� who range from professional athletes to law enforcement officials 鈥� are not aware of the potential impact on their fertility. 鈥淚t鈥檚 hard to convince a 20-year-old that it matters,鈥� says Honig.
Unexpected trap
But even men who have strong, healthy sperm risk completely immobilising them if they use common lubricants, such as K-Y, Astroglide or FemGlide, found another study.
Ashok Agarwal, at the Cleveland Clinic, Ohio, US, and colleagues incubated semen from 13 men in a synthetic analogue of vaginal fluid mixed with a 10% concentration of a lubricant for 30 minutes, simulating a typical single use, he says.
Only one lubricant involved in the study, called Pre-Seed, did not impair sperm movement, or motility, compared with a medium of human fluid alone, Agarwal says. Pre-Seed (with which the researchers have no affiliation) left 64% of sperm able to swim. Astroglide, on the other hand, a product often recommended to infertility patients, spared only 2% of sperm.
Agarwal also investigated the longer-term effects of lubricants by looking at how 4 hours of incubation affected sperm DNA. Again, Pre-Seed did not differ from control, whereas the two others tested, FemGlide and K-Y, damaged sperm DNA. 鈥淭here鈥檚 a great deal of confusion,鈥� he says. 鈥淧eople think that since these lubricants don鈥檛 contain spermicides, they don鈥檛 cause harm.鈥�
The studies were presented at a meeting of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine in Montreal, Canada.
