Ask most people why they’re limiting their fat intake, and the answer is simple: because they don’t want to gain weight. But a diet high in fat does a lot more than just lead to a few extra pounds–more and more, an unhealthy diet is being linked to other, more pressing complications. Like, according to a new study, lower concentration and lower-quality sperm in men.
Published in Human Reproduction, the study was conducted at a fertility clinic by a researcher from Dartmouth, who asked men what they ate, and compared it to their sperm’s viability and quality. The study found that not only did the men who reported a fattier diet have a 38% lower sperm concentration than those who reported a low-fat diet, but also that the men with the highest levels of saturated fats in their bodies produced the lowest quality of little swimmers.
The study has some flaws–chiefly, that the data pool was small (only 99 candidates) and mostly Caucasian (almost 90%), which means it’s definitely by no means indicative of all men, everywhere. Additionally, the majority of the men in the study (much like the majority of the men in the country) were overweight or obese, which doesn’t make for a perfect control group. But, the researcher admits, the study didn’t take that into account–they focused just on the diet–even though, as NPR points out, previous studies have shown that obesity can lead to lower fertility rates in men, as well.
However, it does raise an interesting point: what you eat truly impacts every function of your body. And if a person’s diet is high in fat, it’s doing more than just impacting their waistline–it could be altering their body’s ability to do things like, you know, produce high-quality sperm.
There have been similar studies regarding female fertility, which have concluded that trans fats may lead to decreased potential for pregnancy. However, studies linking lifestyle and diet to aspects of health like fertility are still relatively fledgling. There was, however, a similar study earlier this week, which indicated that obese mothers are more likely to give birth to children with mental deficits.
Of course, not all mothers who carry extra weight while they carry a baby are also eating a diet that’s high in fat–there’s no evidence that that’s the case–but it is interesting that so much about our reproductive health and efficacy is contingent on the health and wellbeing of the rest of our body.
We spend a lot of time in our culture worrying about eating fat because it will make us fat. But a diet that’s high in saturated, trans, and other unhealthy fats is less problematic because of how it makes us look–healthy bodies come in all shapes and sizes–and more about our bodies’ ability to perform its basic functions.
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