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 The researchers studied sperm samples from 155 men who were
attending a fertility clinic between 2007 and 2012 because they and
their partners were having trouble conceiving.
The men also answered 131 questions about the food they ate,
including how often and in what quantities they ate 38 fruits and
vegetables like apples, avocadoes or cantaloupe. The researchers
compared their answers to annual U.S. Department of Agriculture data
on average pesticide residue in types of produce.
For example, peppers, spinach, strawberries, apples, and pears tend
to have high levels of pesticide residue, whereas peas, beans,
grapefruit, and onions have low-to-moderate amounts.
Half the men ate at least 3.5 servings of fruits and vegetables per
day.
The total amount of fruits and veggies in the diet was not
associated with semen quality. But men who ate at least 1.5 servings
of high-pesticide produce per day had about half as many sperm in
their semen, and two-thirds as many normal-appearing sperm, as men
who ate less than half a serving of high-pesticide produce per day,
according to results in Human Reproduction.
“This does not necessarily imply reduced fertility,” said senior
author Jorge Chavarro of Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
“We will continue our work to try to figure out to what extent these
effects in semen quality may ultimately impact fertility.”
Pesticide-laden produce was linked to poorer semen quality even when
the authors accounted for smoking status and the men’s weight in
relation to their height, which can both affect sperm quality. In
fact, men who ate more high-pesticide fruits and vegetables tended
to exercise more and have a healthier diet overall, Chavarro said.
Other studies had tied poorer semen quality to occupational and
environmental exposure to pesticide chemicals, and the latest
results indicate the same is true for pesticides in the diet.
Given that pesticides are designed to kill and harm pest
reproduction, it is not surprising that they are harmful to human
reproduction, said Dr. Hagai Levine of the Icahn School of Medicine
at Mount Sinai in New York, who coauthored an editorial published
with the findings.
Recent evidence indicates that sperm quality is an important measure
of general health, and poor semen quality predicts higher risk of
death, Levine told Reuters Health by email.
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“This is an observational study, not an interventional study, so
other characteristics, associated both with pesticide-riddled fruit
consumption and with semen quality could explain the results,” he
said. But the researchers did account for other factors like age,
body mass, physical activity, race, smoking, urogenital conditions,
season and year, he noted.
“These results do not point to any one specific pesticide or group
of pesticides,” Chavarro told Reuters Health by email. “Instead,
they suggest that pesticide mixtures, as used in agriculture, may be
to blame.”
“Gaining a better understanding on which specific mixtures or
pesticides explain this relation will be key moving forward,
however,” he said.
He and his team are actively investigating whether women’s markers
of fertility may also be linked to pesticides in the diet, he said.
Organic produce carries less pesticide residue, if you can afford
it, he said.
Another option is to choose fruits and vegetables known to have low
levels of pesticide residues, he said.
Some pesticides remain on the surface of produce and may come off
when washed, but many others are absorbed into fruit and washing
will do nothing in those cases, Chavarro said.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/1IggMzd
Human Reproduction, March 30, 2015.
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