FirstMed Consulting Blog

Over the past 50 years, sperm counts around the world have fallen from an average of 113 million sperm per ml to between 66 and 76 million. Scientists have suggested that male infertility is the leading cause of infertile couples. . There has been much speculation over the years on the extent to which diet can effect man‘s little swimmers. Questions abound such as, Can diet improve the quality and quantity of sperm?

A BBC programme exploring ’The Truth about Food’ recently addressed these questions, undertaking an ambitious experiment to determine whether changing diet could improve the numbers and quality of a man’s sperm. Six sub-fertile men whose sperm counts were between 5-20million were put on a high nutrient smoothie diet to see if they could improve their levels of motility, morphology, sperm count and DNA fragmentation with the aim of reaching the 100% target. Mid-way through the study, one couple had conceived and by the end there was a consistent improvement in the quality of all of the men’s sperm, especially in the sperm DNA levels.

They also explored whether or not a man’s diet can have a radical effect on the taste of his sperm. They took three adventurous couples and turned them in to guinea pigs. For three days prior to the experiment the men were to abstain from alcohol and to eat a bland diet containing no spicy or strong tasting food such as garlic or asparagus. Each of the men then followed a specific diet as closely as possible for three days. One took on ‘Hot and Spicy’, one ‘Fabulously Fishy’ and the third ‘Fantastically Fruity and Fresh’. On the morning of the third day they asked the men for a sample of their semen and then asked their partners what flavours they could detect, through smell and through taste. Two of the three partners accurately identified which diet the men had been on.

So there you have it - Food has a huge effect on sperm down to its very taste. Good dietary intake of antioxidants and micronutrients is critically important for normal semen quality and reproductive function. Healthy men with a higher antioxidant intake from both diet and supplements are likely to have more sperm and their sperm will be more motile.