Pycnogenol - The last antioxidant

Pycnogenol is the last of the major antioxidants i think can help improve my Sperm morphology. It also appears to be one of the most powerful antioxidants available.

This paper, details some amazing improvements in sperm morphology - 19 people took 200mg of Pycnogenol a day for 3 months, and this was result;

"...Pycnogenol produced a 38% improvement in sperm morphology "

38% improvement!! That's huge!!

But there's more good news about Pycnogenol, this site concludes that when combined with COQ10, the power of both antioxidants is actually increased;

"The antioxidant effect of both micronutrients together was higher than expected from their respective individual activities, proving that CoQ10 and Pycnogenol cooperate synergistically for maintaining good cardiovascular health."

So Pycnogenol makes the list of antioxidant supplements.

Next up I'm going to look into other supplements which may improve morphology as my research into antioxidants has pretty much dried up!

What causes Teratozoospermia (Part 2)

The more I read up about Teratozoospermia (and not just Teratozoospermia, but male infertility in general), the more i am convinced that Oxidative Stress plays a huge role.

The building blocks behind healthy sperm are quite simple; maintain a healthy weight, exercise regularly (but not to excess), avoid stress and eat a healthy diet of protein, fruit and vegetables. This alone should give a man everything they need to create healthy sperm well into their 40's and 50's. Simple.

But for whatever reason, in some males, there appears to be something happening which impedes the healthy formation of sperm. For a healthy man to have 0% morphology at 33 years old is quite unusual, there must be something else at play, something which is constantly nuking the production process.... And almost every study out there seems to think its Oxidative stress.

There are a few things that (i think) I've come to understand over the last few months which could be impacting me;

1) Oxidative Stress on the testicles is something that can build up over time; The major culprits appear to be

• Alcohol 
• Poor diet
• Excessive heat (in fact i read in some cultures people use excessive heat to sterilise themselves!)

These things cause oxidative stress, which leads to poor sperm morphology.

But there's another source of Oxidative stress, and that's;

• Defective Sperm themselves - They essentially fall to pieces and in doing so, actually cause Oxidative Stress to the other healthy sperm.

So......

More Oxidative Stress means more Defective Sperm
More Defective Sperm leads to more Oxidative Stress

Its a vicious cycle which if left unchecked could totally trash the quality of your sperm.

This article provides a good overview of all things that can impact on sperm quality, it summarises;

"Spermatozoa are vulnerable to ROS (oxidative stress) because their plasma membrane and cytoplasm contain large amounts of polyunsaturated fatty acids.5 Excessive generation of ROS in semen by leukocytes as well as by abnormal spermatozoa could be a cause of infertility."

I think its possible my intake of antioxidants has been so low over the last few years that the build up of Oxidative Stress has pushed my sperm into this vicious cycle from which it cannot escape on its own..

2) Each cell in the body is under constant attack from Free radicals;

"Bruce Ames, a well-known scientist in the field of antioxidants, estimates that just one cell in the human body is hit about 10,000 times a day by a free radical. If that’s multiplied by the trillions of cells in the body the magnitude of this activity is tremendous."

10,000 times per day for each cell! That truly is huge, the one glass of orange juice a week i had on my old diet really wasn't enough to fight this barrage, so its no wonder my sperm production process has fallen into this vicious cycle. 

The 'cure' to all of this definitely appears to be a huge and ongoing dose of a variety of antioxidants, this should be enough to pull the sperm production process out of this funk and get things back on track. Time will tell, the next sperm test is only a few months away!

L-Carnitine

So it appears as though this one is a biggy.

There are a lot of studies out there into L-Carnitine and as far as i can see, all of them conclude the same thing, that L-Carnitine not only has antioxidant properties, but also plays a crucial (yet poorly understood) role in the formation of sperm (as far as i can tell, it appears to be primarily related to sperm motility / energy).

One study simply conducted a test into the levels of Carnitine found in the sperm of fertile & non fertile men, and they found a significantly higher amount of Carnitine in the fertile samples;

"The level of free L-carnitine in the seminal plasma of the fertile men was significantly higher than that of the infertile (P < 0.01). The lower the sperm concentration, the weaker the sperm vitality, the more significant the difference"

After searching for 'sources of carnitine', i found that its most commonly found in red meats like Beef and pork, neither of which i consume on a regular basis, so it follows that i might have low levels of Carnitine in my system which could be contributing to my poor sperm morphology.

One study had this result with 1500mg of L-Carnitine mixed with various antioxidants;

"Semen analysis data showed a significant increase in concentration, motility, vitality and morphology parameters"

But its this study which i found particularly interesting, it gave 156 people 1000mg of Carnitine a day for 3 months, and this was the result;

A significant uptick in all parameters, but its greatest impact was on morphology, so this one seems like a no brainer, its definitely something i need to add to the collection.

What causes Teratozoospermia?

I've obviously been doing a lot of research into this recently, while I'm now convinced there appears to be a link between a lack of antioxidants and Teratozoospermia (see previous post), it doesn't explain everything away.

I know people who are a lot older than me, people who drink excessively, smoke, don't exercise and are generally unhealthy who have all managed to have kids.

It doesn't make sense, people have been having kids since the dawn of time without requiring huge amount of antioxidants, there must be more to it, so i did some more digging and here's what i found;

1. Nobody really knows what causes it

That's it!

Hodgkin's disease, coeliac disease, Crohn's disease, smoking, Varicocele, drugs, STD's, poor diet, pesticides, infections, excessive heat, diabetes, age, chemotherapy, excessive trauma, pollution, lifestyle.

All of these things could contribute to poor sperm morphology and lead to Teratozoospermia. But this is largely theoretical or based on limited evidence. And none of them truly impact me.

The only things i can think of which may apply to me could be Alcohol and genetics;

Alcohol; Yes, it appears as though Alcohol can really mess things up;

-  Alcohol can have profound deleterious effects at all levels of the male reproductive system.

- 'It causes impaired testosterone production, enormous testicular oxidative stress and testicular atrophy.'

ENORMOUS Oxidative stress! Time and time again it appears as a cause of poor sperm morphology, however I don't think i drink enough Alcohol to cause catastrophic damage to my sperm production, i probably only drink about 7 beers a week on average (but that's usually in one evening). That might cause some damage, but wouldn't be enough to render me totally infertile surely?

There's another study about the link between Oxidative Stress and Sperm which included some interesting figures about alcohol (see below) - people who had consumed alcohol in the last 3 months had a significantly lower sperm count, but they actually had slightly higher motility and concentration;

There are a lot more factors in play here which I'm breezing over, but essentially I'm just going to cut back on Alcohol. No more than 2 beers in any one evening should be fine, I'm not going to cut it out completely (that would be just too depressing!)

Genetics; A few websites touch upon this. They essentially suggest that the factory which produces the sperm is defective due to my genetics. Therefore the factory produces defective sperm with fragmented DNA. If this is the case then there is truly nothing that can be done for me, its simply the way I've been built, i cant change that any more than i can change the colour of my eyes... This study talks a little bit more about missing DNA sequences which could cause sperm to be defective, but it doesn't really mean much to me.

Perhaps my Dad has Teratozoospermia and its been passed on to me & amplified? Who knows (I'm hoping its not that).