Add nuts to a balanced diet would significantly improve the quality and fertility of sperm, according to the results of a study published in the medical journal European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology.
Researchers from Rovira i Virgili University in Reus (Spain) conducted a study with 119 “healthy” men, aged 18 to 35, who they separated into two groups.
The study was carried out, according to the lead author, Dr Albert Salas-Huetos, against a background of a general decline in the quantity and quality of sperm, attributed in industrialized countries to “the pollution, the smoking and an unhealthy diet“.
For 14 weeks the volunteers were fed 60 grams per day of oilseeds (almonds, nuts hazelnuts), or by their usual diet. For the analysis, the researchers recorded not only sperm health parameters, but also changes in several molecular factors, including the fragmentation of sperm DNA.
Nuts effective against infertility
The results revealed significantly higher levels of sperm count, vitality, mobility and body type in the men who ate nuts. Improvements in the first group were approximately 16% in sperm count, 4% in sperm vitality, 6% in sperm mobility and 1% in morphology. “These four parameters,” Salas-Huetos explained, “are all associated with the male fertilityIn addition, subjects in the nut group also showed a significant reduction in their rate of sperm DNA fragmentation, a parameter closely associated with themale infertility.
The results of this study confirm the publication in 2013 by researchers from The Fielding School of Public Health at UCLA University in California, which revealed that a large handful of nuts daily would improve the quality of their seminal fluid.
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