Division of Preventive Medicine and Public Health, Department of Health and Social Sciences, University of Murcia School of Medicine, 30100 Espinardo, Murcia, Spain.
Hum Reprod. 2012 Sep;27(9):2807-14. doi: 10.1093/humrep/des247. Epub 2012 Jun 29.
What are the associations between the dietary intake of antioxidant nutrients and semen parameters in young men?
Our study suggests that some sperm parameters are sensitive to dietary intake of antioxidant nutrients.
A few reports have suggested that some dietary factors might be related to semen quality. However, the relationship between the intake of antioxidant nutrients and semen quality in young men remains unexplored.
STUDY DESIGN, SIZE, DURATION: In this cross-sectional study, 215 young men were included between October 2010 and November 2011.
PARTICIPANTS/MATERIALS, SETTING, METHODS: Healthy university students with complete dietary and semen quality data were analyzed. Dietary intake was recorded using a validated food frequency questionnaire. The associations between the energy-adjusted nutrient intake of antioxidants in quartiles and the semen volume, sperm concentration, sperm motility, sperm morphology, total sperm count and total motile sperm count were assessed using multivariate linear regression.
Out of 240 students who contacted us, 223 (92.9%) were eligible to participate in this study, and 215 attended the clinical appointment. In the multivariate adjusted linear regression models, there was a positive association between dietary intakes of cryptoxanthin (P(trend) = 0.03), vitamin C (P(trend) = 0.04), lycopene (P(trend) = 0.03) and β-carotene (P(trend) = 0.04) and total motile sperm count. The semen volume increased with higher intakes of vitamin C (P(trend) = 0.04).
LIMITATIONS, REASONS FOR CAUTION: Only one sample of semen was taken for each subject. However, there are indications that one semen sample may be sufficient to characterize the semen quality of the individuals in epidemiological studies. Bias due to measurement errors may also occur since there is no perfect method to assess diet. However, any bias due to measurement error would be non-differential and would reduce, not increase, the strength of the associations. Although selection bias in cross-sectional studies might not always be ruled out, our subjects were university student volunteers who were rewarded for their participation and the study was not advertised as a fertility study.
Previous articles in this area have focused mainly on men attending fertility clinics, thus our study brings generalizability to young men of the general population with unknown or untested fertility. Some of our results are in agreement with the previously reported papers.
抗氧化营养素的饮食摄入与年轻男性精液参数之间有何关联？
我们的研究表明，一些精子参数对饮食中抗氧化营养素的摄入敏感。
一些报告表明，一些饮食因素可能与精液质量有关。然而，年轻男性抗氧化营养素摄入与精液质量之间的关系仍未得到探索。
研究设计、大小和持续时间：本横断面研究纳入了 2010 年 10 月至 2011 年 11 月期间的 215 名年轻男性。
参与者/材料、设置、方法：分析了具有完整饮食和精液质量数据的健康大学生。使用经过验证的食物频率问卷记录饮食摄入情况。使用多元线性回归评估抗氧化营养素摄入量按四分位数的能量调整后与精液量、精子浓度、精子活力、精子形态、总精子数和总活动精子数之间的关系。
在联系我们的 240 名学生中，有 223 名（92.9%）符合参与本研究的条件，有 215 名参加了临床预约。在多元调整线性回归模型中，膳食中叶黄素（P（趋势）= 0.03）、维生素 C（P（趋势）= 0.04）、番茄红素（P（趋势）= 0.03）和β-胡萝卜素（P（趋势）= 0.04）的摄入量与总活动精子数呈正相关。精液量随着维生素 C 摄入量的增加而增加（P（趋势）= 0.04）。
局限性、谨慎的原因：每个受试者只采集了一份精液样本。然而，有迹象表明，在流行病学研究中，一个精液样本可能足以描述个体的精液质量。由于饮食评估没有完美的方法，因此也可能会出现测量误差引起的偏差。然而，任何由于测量误差引起的偏差都将是非差异的，并且会降低而不是增加关联的强度。尽管横断面研究中的选择偏差不一定总是可以排除，但我们的研究对象是参与研究的大学生志愿者，他们的参与得到了奖励，而且该研究没有作为生育能力研究进行宣传。
该领域之前的文章主要集中在参加生育诊所的男性，因此我们的研究将可普遍性推广到一般人群中具有未知或未经测试生育能力的年轻男性。我们的一些结果与之前报道的论文一致。
