Dietary Patterns and Their Relationship With Semen Quality

Abstract

Diet is a complex exposure variable, which calls for multiple approaches to examine the relationship between diet and disease risk. To address these issues, several authors have recently proposed studying overall dietary patterns by considering how foods and nutrients are consumed in combinations. The aim of the study was to investigate the associations between dietary patterns, semen quality parameters, and the level of reproductive hormones. The study population consisted of 336 men who attended the infertility clinic for diagnostic purposes and who had normal semen concentration of 20 to 300 mln/ml or slight oligozoospermia (semen concentration of 15-20 mln/ml). Participants were interviewed, and a semen sample was provided by them. Diet was assessed via food frequency questionnaire, and dietary patterns were identified by factor analysis. Men were classified into three groups according to scores of each dietary pattern: Western, Mixed, or Prudent. A positive association was observed between sperm concentration and Prudent dietary pattern, and level of testosterone and Prudent dietary pattern ( p = .05, p = .03, respectively). Additionally, Prudent dietary pattern was identified to decrease the DNA fragmentation index ( p = .05). The results were adjusted for sexual abstinence, age, smoking, past diseases, and alcohol consumption. Higher consumption of a Prudent dietary pattern was associated with higher sperm concentration and higher level of testosterone. Sperm chromatin structure was inversely related to higher consumption of a Prudent dietary pattern. Further research is needed to confirm these findings and extend these results to other populations.

Fatty acids, food groups and semen variables in men referring to an Italian Fertility Clinic: Cross‐sectional analysis of a prospective cohort study

“…Our results are broadly consistent with the findings of Jurewicz et al (Jurewicz et al, 2018): in a sample of 336 men aged 22-45 years, they found that Prudent pattern, including vegetables, fruit, and excluding red meat, was positively associated with higher SC, whereas no relationship was observed with SPM. A beneficial effect of vegetable intake was also observed in a case-control study (Mendiola et al, 2009), where 30 cases had lower intake of vegetables than 31 controls.…”

The influence of omega‐3 fatty acids on semen quality markers: a systematic PRISMA review

“…The observational studies examined whether there was an association between different dietary patterns, food groups or FA and fertility markers in semen (Table ). Nine of these studies investigated men from infertile or subfertile couples admitted to a fertility clinic (Mendiola et al ., ; Vujkovic et al ., ; Attaman et al ., ; Eslamian et al ., , , ; Afeiche et al ., ; Karayiannis et al ., ; Jurewicz et al ., ), and three studies examined the diet of young, healthy men (Gaskins et al ., ; Jensen et al ., ; Cutillas‐Tolin et al ., ). The 16 examined articles are presented in Tables and .…”

“…The results from the observational studies are in line with the results from the RTCs as they indicate that an overall healthy diet rich on omega‐3 FA from fish and seafood is associated with increased quality markers in semen. Positive association with omega‐3 FA were observed in the following parameters: reduced risk of asthenozoospermia (Eslamian et al ., , , ), normal morphology (Attaman et al ., ; Afeiche et al ., ; Cutillas‐Tolin et al ., ), increased total sperm count (Afeiche et al ., ; Karayiannis et al ., ), concentration (Karayiannis et al ., ; Jurewicz et al ., ), motility (Gaskins et al ., ; Karayiannis et al ., ), volume (Jensen et al ., ) and reduced sperm DNA fragmentation (Vujkovic et al ., ; Jurewicz et al ., ). The positive association seemed more pronounced among infertile men or men from couples attending fertility clinics compared to young, healthy men.…”

“…Studies including men from the first group were more likely to find a positive association between omega‐3 intake and multiple fertility markers in semen. Thus, the potential beneficial effect of an omega‐3 rich diet seems to be more pronounced in men from couples with trouble conceiving, aged > 30 years with a higher BMI (Vujkovic et al ., ; Attaman et al ., ; Afeiche et al ., ; Karayiannis et al ., ; Jurewicz et al ., ). The effect might be relatively small in young healthy men since this group of men probably already have a higher semen quality.…”

“…The cross‐sectional studies differ in terms of study populations as some studies (Vujkovic et al ., ; Attaman et al ., ; Afeiche et al ., ; Karayiannis et al ., ; Jurewicz et al ., ) included men from fertility clinics with a mean age above 30 years, and a large proportion of the men had a BMI ≥ 25 kg/m 2 . In contrast, others (Gaskins et al ., ; Jensen et al ., ; Cutillas‐Tolin et al ., ) included young, healthy men.…”