Fertility Basics: Part 3 – Male infertility

When it comes to infertility, often the focus is on women and their bodies, which, is only half the picture! For many men, they watch their partners struggle with stress and tests, and unfortunately don’t always get the attention they deserve.

Stats:

Approximately 3 out of 10 couples can trace their fertility issues to male issues. Additionally, 2 out of 10 of these couples struggle due to a mix of factors from both the male and female partner. So, like in most cases, examining the whole system (aka including both partners) is important.

Sperm and Oxidative Stress:

When it comes to male infertility, the focus is on the sperm. Both quality and quantity are important and luckily, both can be easily tested through a sperm sample. One of the biggest factors for both sperm quality and quantity is oxidative stress.

Normally, when our body is damaged we produce free radicals and our antioxidant species (“defenses”) come in and eliminate these free radicals. If the balance between free radicals and antioxidant species is imbalanced, we get what’s called “oxidative stress”.

How to reduce Oxidative Stress:

Age, environmental exposure to toxins, diet and exercise will all play into the amount of oxidative stress someone is under. Of course there isn’t much we can do about age, but the rest of the factors are adjustable! Here are a few things you can do immediately, to help balance oxidative stress:

• Eat a diet high in vegetables ”colour”
• Eat blueberries or blackberries to boost antioxidant intake
• Drink green tea instead of coffee
• Limit expose to toxins such as smoke, household chemicals, pesticides or poisons, alcohol, or mold
• Maintain a healthy weight
• Take a high quality multivitamin (sorry but Costco doesn’t count as high quality)

When it comes to improving sperm, a minimum of 3 months is what it takes to see changes, so getting a head start is a great idea. This is the same time period that I would recommend a prenatal for any woman trying to conceive, so essentially both a man and a woman should get their prenatal in.

For more questions or info, talk with one of our ND’s.

 

In health,

Dr Chanel Cressman, ND