Smoking Hinders Sperm, Study Says
10/20/05
Smoking decreases fertility by impairing the ability of sperm to bind to eggs, MedPage Today reported Oct. 19.
Researcher Lani Burkman, Ph.D., of the University of Buffalo School of Medicine said that the data show that male long-term smokers are likely to have reproductive problems. "In a direct fertility testing situation, we can show that two-thirds of smokers have lost some or a lot of their fertilizing capacity," said Burkman.
Burkman and colleagues measured the binding capability of sperm taken from 18 chronic smokers and compared their data to sperm from nonsmokers. Only 6 of the 18 smokers had even 65 percent of the reproductive capacity of the control group; nine had 35 percent or less of the capacity of nonsmokers. "Not only did they fail, they failed miserably," said Burkman.
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