Health
Women have long known that their diet affects their ability to conceive, but a new study has found that the type of fat men prefer is just as important when it comes to conceiving a child. According to the study, saturated fats, such as those found in bacon, have a negative effect on sperm quality, while omega-3 fats in fish improve sperm quality.
The study was conducted by American author Jill Attaman, a researcher at Massachusetts General Hospital and an instructor in obstetrics, gynecology, and reproductive biology at Harvard Medical School. They studied 99 American men who went to a fertility clinic over a four-year period. The men filled in the questionnaire regarding their nutrition, and seed samples were taken and analyzed from them.
The researchers determined the level of fatty acids in semen, and measured seminal plasma in 23 samples, and here's what they found:
Men with the highest fat intake had 43 percent lower sperm counts and 38 percent lower sperm concentrations. Sperm count refers to the total amount of sperm in seminal fluid, while sperm concentration refers to the number of sperm in a certain amount of seed.
According to the World Health Organization, a normal sperm count is at least 39 million sperm cells in seminal fluid, and a normal sperm concentration At least 15 million sperm cells per milliliter of seed are estimated.
As it turned out during the study, it's not just about total fat intake, but saturated fats, since Omega-3 fatty acids, which, on the contrary, had a positive effect on sperm production. For example, men who ate the most omega-3-rich foods had 1.9 percent more sperm cells that were properly formed than those who had the lowest omega-3 intake. The conclusions are clear: if you are going to conceive, you need to eat more fish and less fatty meat.