EXPOSURE IN ALUMINIUM MAY IMPACT ON MALE FERTILITY
New research from
scientists in the UK and France suggests that human exposure to aluminum may be
a significant factor in falling sperm counts and reduced male fertility.
Fluorescence
microscopy using an aluminum-specific stain confirmed the presence of aluminum
in semen and showed aluminum inside individual sperm.
And the team of scientists, at the universities of Lyon and
Saint-Etienne in France and Keele in the UK, found that the higher the
aluminum, the lower sperm count.
The research, led by Professor Christopher Exley, a leading
authority on human exposure to aluminum at Keele, and Professor Michele
Cottier, a specialist in cytology and histology at Saint-Etienne, measured the
aluminum content of semen from 62 donors at a French clinic.
Professor Exley said: "There has been a significant decline
in male fertility, including sperm count, throughout the developed world over
the past several decades and previous research has linked this to environmental
factors such as endocrine disruptors.
"Human exposure to aluminum has increased significantly
over the same time period and our observation of significant contamination of
male semen by aluminum must implicate aluminum as a potential contributor to
these changes in reproductive fertility."
The mean aluminum content for all 62 donors was found to be very
high at 339 ppb with the aluminum content of semen from several donors being in
excess of 500 ppb. A statistically significant inverse relationship was found
between the aluminum content of semen and the sperm count. Higher aluminum
resulted in a lower sperm count.
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