by V. Kumar

Created on: July 01, 2008   Last Updated: April 22, 2009

Few of us are fully aware about the harms that cigarette smoke has an on the quality of semen. In fact, if only this fact is fully brought out and publicised, many persons getting addicted to it during their teen age, and especially by curious and adventurous trials, may actually be saved.

CIGARETTE SMOKE is a culprit in such a large number of medical diseases that its impact on different parts of body has been a matter of constant interest and investigation. Reproductive system is no exception, and though the investigations so far do not provide all the answers that the investigators have been seeking, one thing is clear - cigarette smoke negatively affects the quality of semen of smokers. Moreover, it is worse in those who smoke more and perhaps even worse in those who both smoke and drink.

EVIDENCE AND RESEARCH FINDINGS SUGGESTING IMPACT ON SEMEN QUALITY

Several studies have been conducted to study the impact of smoking on semen quality and its characteristics. The methodology and control population in these studies have been different. Some employed normal fertile non-smoker males as control, while others used the subgroup of non-fertile non-smokers for this purpose. Some of the studies are prospective in nature but the majority consist of retrospective analysis of smoking history,and current examination of semen quality.

No surprise, then, that the deductions derived from these studies do not always lead to a common conclusion, even though most suggest a clearly negative impact of smoking on semen health.

The results of four different studies clearly demonstrate this.

STUDY 1 : Dr. Nick Bersinger (University of Berne, Switzerland) and co-authors conducted a study on 655 smoking and 1,131 non-smoking men. through a questionnaire. Their semen samples were collected and analysed, and detailed information about their behaviour were collected through a questionnaire. Results suggest that cigarette smoking is associated with a fall in sperm density, sperm count, sperm motility and sperm health, leading the researcher group to conclude that smoking negatively affects the semen quality. (1)

STUDY 2 : A four member team lead by Jin-Ping Zhang conducted a similar study on smokers and non-smokers attending the infertility clinic in Shandong, China and observed that the semen volume, sperm density, viability and mobility were much lower in the medium, heavy and long-term smokers than in the non-smokers and were negatively correlated with the amount and duration of cigarette

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