A small team of researchers affiliated with several institutions in and around Shanghai, China, has found evidence that men who live in heavily polluted areas may experience poor sperm motility. In their paper published in JAMA Network Open, the group describes studying the medical records of thousands of men living in China.
Prior research has shown that sperm counts for men living in North America, Australia and Europe have been declining since the 1970s. Scientists do not know why this is happening, but theorize it is likely tied to air pollution. Several studies have been conducted in recent years attempting to better understand the connection between sperm health and air pollution involving particulate matter. Unfortunately, such studies have delivered mixed results. In this new effort, the researchers in China sought to find connections by studying the health records of 33,876 male patients at fertility clinics in 130 cities in China.
The work involved first separating the patients into four groups based on the degree of air pollution in the areas where the men lived. They then studied sperm examination results conducted by doctors at the fertility clinics. They focused on sperm count, degree of concentration and motility. Motility describes the ability of sperm, on average, to swim forward, and is considered a measure of sperm health.
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