Antioxidants; Teratozoospermia cure?

The doctor suggested increasing my intake of antioxidants may help improve my sperm. I didn't believe him at first, how can a simple cup of green tea make me fertile? It seemed like a stretch.

So i started the same place everyone does, Google.

Turns out 'oxidative stress' appears to be a major cause of infertility among men. So i started reading up about it;

"Like an apple turns brown when exposed to air, our cells can “rust” when we breathe due to oxidative stress, a process caused by free radicals. Free radicals are unstable molecules that damage or “oxidize” cells throughout the body in a process called oxidative stress."

Basically something as essential as breathing appears to cause free radicals, which can then go on to cause oxidative stress to sperm production, who knew?!

Free radicals can also be caused by alcohol, smoking, air pollution, or eating processed foods among other things... If you don't consume enough anti-oxidants, these free radicals can build up over time and apparently cause some real damage.

Now, I've never smoked, but I'm not exactly a fan of my fruits, and I've been known to drink a lot of beer and eat a lot of crap over the years. Perhaps its all finally caught up with me? Although I feel I've always been moderately healthy (If sperm morphology was determined by health alone, I'd expect my morphology to be in the 60% - 65% range), perhaps I've neglected anti-oxidants without even realising?

This study is particularly interesting, if I've understood it correctly, this graph essentially compares oxidant levels (LP, the left bar) and antioxidant levels (SOD, the right bar) in the testies of Teratozoospermic men;

You can see in Teratozoospermic men, the oxidant levels are almost off the charts.

There are a few more studies that support the theory, including this one which concluded ROS (Oxidative Stress) was much higher in Teratozoospermic men;

"RESULTS Sperm morphology was significantly poor in the Teratozoospermic Group compared with the 3 Donor Groups (P < 0.05). Significantly higher levels of ROS (RLU/sec/10⁶ sperm) were seen in the Teratozoospermic group (145.4 (41.5; 555.4) compared to the Donor Groups"

The below table compares the figures, in Teratozoospermic men Oxidative stress was 2.5 times higher than the 'proven donors' group;

So there appears to be a scientific consensus that there is a strong link between Oxidative Stress and poor sperm morphology. It is also accepted that antioxidants can help reduce oxidative stress.

Since 'Teratozoospermia' is essentially the term used to categorise men with seriously low morphology levels (0-4% according to the world Health Organisation), I'm led to believe that an enormous and ongoing dose of various antioxidants will improve my sperm morphology, and potentially move me out of the 'Teratozoospermia' bracket.

So the next step is to research antioxidants!