Semenax and Sperm

After much deliberation, I've decided a product known as Semenax makes the list of supplements.

In my quest to improve my sperm morphology, I have been almost constantly bombarded by advertisements for various 'libido enhancers' all 'scientifically proven' to improve my sex life (I guess after searching for 'how to improve sperm morphology' over 50 times, google tries its best to help out).

So after exhausting pretty much every scientific paper i can find about sperm morphology, I started to look elsewhere, and Semenax is one of many products out there that claims to improve my libido (and sex life among other things).

To cut to the chase, there are a lot of trash products out there, i read up on at least 20 similar 'fertility' and 'male enhancement' products and they were all garbage with no scientific evidence to support their claims.

One of the few products which actually supported some of their claims was Semenax.

The unique selling point of Semenax is that it appears to increase the volume of your semen, by increasing the amount of seminal fluid produced by the body. Semenax has a huge amount of ingredients, so they appear to taking a kitchen sink approach to their product;

Their website gives more details on the effect of all these ingredients, and there is a lot of good stuff in there which ties up with a lot of the research I've conducted over the last few months; Arginine, Zinc, Carnitine, Vitamin E, Pine Bark Extract (Pycnogenol) have all been proven to improve sperm quality.

But the main reason i went with Semenax is because they have actually produced a scientific paper, they tested the product on 60 people and the results actually showed a marginal improvement in sperm morphology;

Though I don't fully understand the ANOVA measurement style, the key thing in my mind is that the morphology numbers improved!

So Semenax makes the list, if this improvement in morphology was down to the antioxidants included in the product, then great. If its down to some of the other ingredients, then I've now got that covered too.

Selenium (AKA Brazil Nuts)

I'm now taking so many supplements that I'm starting to rattle, however the research continues and the latest discovery relates to Selenium. And it appears as though the jury is out.

When i received by sperm analysis results, the doctor suggested i should eat some brazil nuts and drink green tea, at the time i thanked him for his advice but in my head i was thinking 'no way that's going to make any difference'. Regardless, i started eating the brazil nuts, about a handful a day.

Brazil nuts are apparently extremely high in Selenium, which appears to be very important to the formation of sperm;

"..Selenium protects lipid shell encasing each sperm (prevents lipid peroxidation), which is especially important since sperm have a very delicate fatty acid composition."

Essentially it helps protect the sperm from free radicals.

According to the below supplement sheet, 6 large brazil nuts can contain a whole load of useful nutrients including Vitamin E, Zinc & Magnesium, but most importantly, they contain about 800% of the RDA for Selenium;

That's an extremely high dose of selenium for just 6 brazil nuts, so how many should i be eating exactly?

Well, it seems that nobody really knows for sure. Too little and there's no impact, too much and it can have a negative impact;

A study into a dose of just 0.2mg of Selenium combined with n-acetyl-cysteine (another antioxidant i haven't yet looked into) had a good result;

"after 26 weeks of Se supplementation the mean total sperm count, concentration, normal morphology percentage and motility increased from baseline relative to placebo treatment"

Good stuff, so how about a higher dose?

A study into a dose of 0.3mg Selenium alone had this to say;

"higher Se supplementation (300μg/ day orally) increased serum and seminal plasma Se concentrations but did not affect sperm Se, serum androgen concentrations or sperm parameters [22]. The lack of an increase in sperm Se suggests that testicular Se stores are unresponsive to dietary Se concentrations"

...No major impact. Ok so how about even higher?

This study tried a volume greater than 0.4mg and had this result;

"The fraction of motile sperm in the high-selenium group decreased by 32% by week 13 and ended 18% lower than baseline. Selenium concentrations changed in seminal plasma but not in sperm"

So it appears as though a high dose is a no-go. The studies show an increase in Selenium within the seminal plasma, but not the sperm itself... This suggests to me that the spermies just don't require that much selenium.

This summary sheet provides a good overview of the various Selenium studies out there, it essentially concludes that selenium is most effective at a low dose and combined with antioxidants, particularly vitamin E (which is also present in Brazil nuts).

So exactly how many brazil nuts should i be eating? This website suggests 6-8 brazil nuts can contain about 0.5mg of selenium. I need about half of that apparently, so from now on I'm going to eat just 3 brazil nuts a day for my selenium fix.

Vitamin C

Vitamin C (aka Ascorbic acid), i had no idea how important it was.

In my quest to understand the importance of Antioxidants in improving sperm morphology, I've stumbled across a few useful promising studies.

This study is particularly fascinating, 13 patients with low sperm counts (but normal morphology) were given a whopping 2000mg of vitamin C a day for 2 months, and this was the result;

A huge uptick across the board! Importantly for me though Morphology saw a huge increase, and it appears that the lower the starting morphology, the greater the improvement.

This study also suggested lower levels of vitamin C leads to higher rates of DNA damage within the sperm itself;

"When dietary AA was decreased from 250 to 5 mg/day, the seminal fluid AA decreased by half and the level of oxo8dG in sperm DNA increased 91%."

And this study further confirms that low levels of vitamin C appears to correlate with poor sperm morphology;

"Seminal AA in fertile and infertile (smokers or nonsmokers) males correlated significantly with the percentage of spermatozoa with normal morphology (p<0.01). Seminal AA decreased significantly in infertile men. Decrease of seminal plasma AA is a risk factor for low normal morphology of spermatozoa and idiopathic male infertility"

So I've immediately purchased some chewable vitamin C (500mg) tabs for my ever growing collection of supplements, I'm also going to add more citrus fruits to the diet... Aside from the odd glass of orange juice, this is something that admittedly has been almost totally absent for many, many years now.

Lycopene (the tomato antioxidant)

I'm going to eat a lot more Tomatoes.

So, at the moment Antioxidants appears to be the way forward for improving Sperm morphology. And it turns out, there are loads of different types of Antioxidants.

In conducting my research I've come across another promising antioxidant called Lycopene. Lycopene is commonly found in tomatoes and other red vegetables. Something that my diet currently lacks.

There are a few promising articles about Lycopene and the effects on sperm (here, here, and here), the key headline appears to be 'New 'tomato pill' could SUPERCHARGE sperm by 70 per cent'

There is one old study here which suggests 4mg of Lycopene a day for 3 months had this result;

"Twenty patients (66%) showed an improvement in sperm concentration, sixteen (53%) had improved motility and fourteen (46%) showed improvement in sperm morphology."

There are clinical trials underway right now to prove whether 7mg can lead to further improvements, the supplement being tested has been developed by the university of Cambridge and can be found here.

While the previous studies appear promising, I'm reluctant to shell out cash for a somewhat unproven supplement, instead I've researched how many tomatoes I'll need to eat to get a daily dose of Lycopene.

This website suggests a simple tin of tomato soup will give me a whopping 13mg of Lycopene! so I'm going to adjust my diet accordingly to try and consume at least a tin of tomato soup a day.

UPDATE: This article reports on the effects a tin of tomato soup has on Lycopene levels in the testies (the antioxidant was detected but they didn't do any analysis into the impact on sperm).

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!