Pesticides And Sperm Quality: Can They Make Men Infertile?

A recent study carried out by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences determined that men who consumed fruits and vegetables with residues of pesticide had lower percentages of normal spermatozoa. In short, pesticides may affect sperm quality.

The Environmental and Reproductive Health (EARTH) study funded by the National Institute took data from 155 men and 338 semen samples as part of the study. Men sampled were between the ages of 18 and 55 and they visited a fertility center between 2007-2012.

Researchers for the study categorized the fruits and vegetables that had the highest and the lowest concentration of pesticides. Amongst the highest were peppers, spinach, strawberries, apples and pears. Those with the lowest were peas, beans, grapefruits and onions.

The authors found that men who ate more than one and a half servings per day of the fruits and vegetables considered to be high in pesticide residue had 49 percent lower sperm count and 32 percent lower percentage of normal sperm than men who ate less than 0.5 servings of these foods each day.

Rather curiously, men who ate the most amounts of fruits and vegetables with low-to-moderate amounts of pesticide residue had a higher percentage of normal sperm in comparison with those who ate less fruits and vegetables with the same levels of residue.

“There’s hardly any proof that pesticide levels in our food in general are linked to a health effect,” Jorge Chavarro, a professor of nutrition and epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston and lead author on the study, told CBS News. “That’s been incredibly difficult. I think these findings do raise the possibility to measure biological effects on our health.”

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Chavarro said that while many people may be alarmed by these findings, it doesn’t mean men looking to become fathers should stop eating fruits and veggies altogether.

“In fact, we found that consuming more fruits and vegetables with low pesticide residues was beneficial. This suggests that implementing strategies specifically targeted at avoiding pesticide residues, such as consuming organically grown produce or avoiding produce known to have large amounts of residues, may be the way to go,” Chavarro said.

It’s not clear exactly how pesticides may impair male fertility. There are a few explanations. Most importantly, many of these chemicals are endocrine disruptors, or substances that interfere with the hormonal system according to the study.

“One of the limitations of this study is that we cannot link exposure to any one pesticide,” Chavarro said. “It may be linking back to a pesticide mixture, which is more difficult to assess.”