Smoking damages sperm DNA, affects fertility: Experts

Zee Media Bureau

New Delhi: A new study suggests that men who smoke have a greater extent of DNA damage than non-smokers.

Male infertility accounts for about 30 to 50 percent of all infertility cases, and infertile men tend to have high levels of damage to the sperm DNA.

"More and more studies are demonstrating a harmful effect of smoking on male fertility,” senior author of the study Ricardo Pimenta Bertolla from Sao Paulo Federal University in Brazil.

"Our results point in the direction of important semen alterations: Semen of smokers presents an inflammatory nature, associated with decreased capacity of sperm to achieve fertilisation and generate a healthy pregnancy," Pimenta Bertolla noted.

(With IANS inputs)