Effect of alcohol intake and cigarette smoking on sperm parameters and pregnancy

Abstract

Much has been published about smoking and alcohol intake influencing male fertility, sperm parameters and reproductive outcome. However, there is no conclusive agreement about the effects of cigarette smoking and alcohol use on these outcomes and thus no generally accepted guidelines. The combined effect of cigarette smoking and alcohol intake, though, has not been rigorously investigated. Because alcohol consumption and smoking are often seen together, this study focuses on the effect of smoking and drinking habits separately and combined on semen parameters, such as volume, sperm count, motility and morphology, and on pregnancy outcome. These suggested toxic effects are studied in a group of subfertile, asthenozoospermic men (<10% motile spermatozoa), compared with a group of 'proven fertile', healthy men. The extreme asthenozoospermic group has especially been chosen because of the suspected effect, that is, oxidative stress, on sperm motility. In our study, we found that cigarette smoking and alcohol intake did not differ between the subfertile and fertile group. In conclusion, cigarette smoking and alcohol consumption do not appear to significantly affect sperm parameters, such as volume, sperm count, motility and morphology or pregnancy outcome in our study population.

Synergism between the N-acetyltransferase 2 gene and oxidant exposure increases the risk of idiopathic male infertility

“…It is well known from the literature that oxidative stress is considered to be the major pathological mechanism of tissue injury of the male reproductive tract occurring during cigarette smoking (de Jong et al, 2014;Zenzes, 2000) and excessive alcohol drinking (de Jong et al, 2014;Emanuele and Emanuele, 2001a). Allele 590A is part of the NAT2*6A haplotype, which causes the slow-acetylator phenotype due to producing proteins that are poorly expressed, unstable or possess reduced catalytic activities (Badawi et al, 1995).…”

“…Moreover, low fruit/ vegetable intake was found to be associated with the increased risk of infertility only in carriers of this genotype. It can be proposed that a low fruit/vegetable diet seems to (Künzle et al, 2003;Meri et al, 2013) possibly through inducing seminal oxidative stress (de Jong et al, 2014;Saleh et al, 2002). Alcohol can induce oxidative damage either by enhancing the production of highly toxic ROS from alcohol and acetaldehyde, producing lipid peroxidation of membranes in testicular cells or decreasing the concentrations of antioxidants (Emanuele et al, 2001b).…”

Association between cigarette smoking behavior and infertility in women: a case-control study

“…If a user smokes for many years or smokes many cigarettes per day, the risk for fertility problems increases (Amirkhani et al, 2014;Kim et al, 2015). However, other studies have reported that there is no significant relationship between smoking and fertility outcomes in humans (de Jong et al, 2014).…”

Evaluation of Iranian College Students’ Awareness about Infertility Risk Factors

“…Moreover, inactivity and excessive fast food consumption (18,19) leading to obesity can create infertility problems, such as testicular dysfunction and reduced sperm count in males (20)(21)(22)(23), and polycystic ovarian syndrome, one of the main causes of infertility in females (24) , which most of the time can be treated through lifestyle changes (25,26). Stress, drinking alcoholic beverages, and smoking can each reduce reproductive potential through various mechanisms (13,14,(27)(28)(29)(30)(31)(32)(33). Doping, or using anabolic steroids, has the same effect as using androgens or testosterone.…”