WOMEN who want to have babies are not the only ones who need extra folic acid—would-be fathers may also benefit.
Women planning to get pregnant are advised to take at least 40 micrograms of folic acid daily. This greatly reduces the chances of birth defects in which the spine does not form properly, such as spina bifida. Now Regine Steegers-Theunissen of the University of Nijmegen in the Netherlands and her colleagues have found that the vitamin, combined with zinc, can nearly double the numbers of healthy sperm produced by men with fertility problems.
“It’s one of the first papers to show that optimising nutrition can improve sperm quality,” says Lynn Wallock…
