Young people are consuming more and more alcohol and a latest study published in the British Medical Journal has warned that the more alcohol young men drink, the worse the quality of their sperm, putting not only their health at risk, but also their fertility .
For their study, scientists from the University of Southern Denmark (Denmark) had the participation of 1,221 men between the ages of 18 and 28 , who conducted a questionnaire about their alcohol consumption habits, as well as how often they consumed it like the amount of drinks. After completing the questionnaire, his semen and his reproductive hormonal capacity were analyzed.
The results revealed that the participants consumed an average of 11 drinks a week, 64% of them acknowledging that they had gotten drunk in the previous month and 59% had gotten drunk more than two times . After comparing these results with those of the sperm analysis, they found that testosterone levels had increased, while the sex hormone binding globulin (SHBG), the protein that activates sex hormones, had decreased. The total sperm count and the proportion of sperm obtained worse results the higher the consumption of beverages occurred .
“This is, to our knowledge, the first study among healthy young men with detailed information on alcohol consumption and given the fact that young men in the western world drink heavily, it is a public health problem and could be a a contributing factor in the low sperm count that has been observed in Western men , ”the researchers say.
“Many studies have shown that excessive alcohol intake is bad for overall health, but few have shown the impacts on reproductive health except at very high levels,” says researcher Michael Eisenberg, who was not involved in the study.
