Serious effects of alcohol on male fertility

sense of time Gravi effetti dell’alcol sulla fertilità maschile

We often hear about the very negative effects of alcohol consumption on female fertility and how consuming it during pregnancy is very dangerous to the health and life of the unborn child.

Less well known and addressed are the effects of alcohol consumption on male hormonal 'balance and their effect on fertility.

In recent years, also aided by the increasing number of couples having difficulty conceiving or even infertile, there are more and more accurate studies showing that men who are habitual alcohol users have damage to their entire reproductive system.

It has been clear from several studies that alcohol interferes with the functioning of the glands that regulate the production of sex hormones, and this causes reduced fertility in both men and women.
Alcohol hinders the functioning of the entire system and causes infertility, impotence, and alteration of secondary sexual characteristics.

It was in 2014 that a major study, later published in 2018 in the British Medical Journal, was conducted on 1,200 Danish men, which found that the more alcohol consumed, the lower the sperm quality and sperm count.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25277121

Alcohol heavily interferes with sperm quality (volume, sperm concentration, total sperm count, and percentages of motile and morphologically normal sperm) and serum concentration of reproductive hormones (follicle-stimulating hormone, luteinizing hormone, testosterone, sex hormone-binding globulin, estradiol, free testosterone, and inhibin B ).

Dr. Tina Jensen author of the study, which looked at more than 1,200 men between the ages of 18 and 28, pointed out that the lowest sperm count was not only obtained in men who drank a lot of alcohol per week (more than 40 units), but also in those who consumed only 5 units per week. A unit is defined as a beer, a glass of wine or a small shot of liquor.

The reasons behind these deleterious effects are probably related to the fact that alcohol intake leads to changes in hormone levels and levels of other substances including cortisol, glucose, and insulin.

Other even more recent studies conducted by Italian researchers https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29334961
reiterate and confirm this study, emphasizing the importance of reducing alcohol consumption in order to maintain the health of the whole body for a long time but also to be able to preserve one's reproductive assets over the years; it is necessary to start at a young age to do prevention in order not to have to suffer the damage over time.

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