Environmental and lifestyle factors associated with sperm DNA damage

Abstract

Semen quality in the adult male can be affected by a number of environmental and lifestyle factors. However, most studies to date have only considered how sperm concentration, motility and morphology are affected by such exposures. More recent studies, outlined in this review, have begun to examine the effect of environmental and lifestyle factors on sperm DNA integrity. Important factors appear to include: (i) Physical agents such as radiation and heat; (ii) Chemical agents such as cigarette smoke, airborne pollutants, and chemotherapeutic drugs; and (iii) Biological factors including sexually transmitted infections, increasing male age, elevated body mass index and medical conditions such as insulin dependent diabetes. A number of hypotheses have been proposed to account for how sperm DNA might be damaged by these factors. There is, however, uncertainty about the most appropriate laboratory test(s) to identify and quantify such DNA damage and no convincing evidence on possible therapeutic measures.

Use of laptop computers connected to internet through Wi-Fi decreases human sperm motility and increases sperm DNA fragmentation

“…Several lifestyle and environmental factors may adversely impact human health and, in particular, reproductive performance (18). Approximately 15% of the sexually active population is affected by clinical infertility and in 50% of the cases a male factor is involved, either as a primary problem or in combination with a problem in the female partner (28).…”

“…Laptop usage and sperm quality. Fertil Steril 2012. potential by increasing long-term exposure to nonionizing radiation (18).…”

“…Sperm DNA fragmentation has been associated with impaired fertilization, poor embryonic development, high rates of miscarriage, and increased incidence of morbidity in the offspring, including childhood cancer (16,17). It has been proposed that genetic and environmental factors would be involved in the etiology of sperm DNA damage (18).…”

The Role of Chlamydia trachomatis in Male Infertility

“…A variety of causes have been correlated with increased levels of sperm DNA damage, such as cigarette smoking, iatrogenic processes, malignancies (mainly testicular cancer, Hodgkin's disease and leukemia), environmental toxicants, physical agents as radiation and heat, drugs, increasing male age, elevated body mass index and medical conditions as insulin dependent diabetes (for reviews see 96,119,120].…”

Assessment of sperm DNA in patients submitted the assisted reproduction technology procedures

“…Different hypotheses have been proposed to explain the origin of DNA damage in mature sperm of infertile men, including abnormalities in chromatin condensation, microdeletions, aneuploidies, chromosome rearrangements, breakages in single or double strand DNA, apoptosis, and oxidative stress (Gorczca et al, 1993;Manicardi et al, 1995;Sakkas et al, 1999;Barroso et al, 2000;Cho et al, 2001;Souza et al, 2010). In addition to biological factors such as infection, sexually transmitted diseases, obesity, diabetes, age, lifestyle factors including smoking (Pacey, 2010) may also affect chromatin integrity.…”