Diet Can Affect Healthy Sperm

Science has done it again “” pow, pow male reproductive organs, you’re not as protected in that sac as you thought!

Healthy sperm is not just about how fast they can swim and infiltrate a woman’s egg, science has discovered a whole host of health implications those little tadpoles can carry “” starting with diabetes.

Two new studies, published independently in the journal Science, showed that a father’s diet can powerfully affect his offspring.

In one of the studies, a team of Chinese researchers fed male mice a high-fat diet and then harvested their sperm to impregnate female mice. The offspring of those mice developed impaired insulin resistance and glucose intolerance “” both known precursors to diabetes “” while the offspring of a control group of mice did not.

A second study conducted by US and Canadian researchers, which ran the same experiment but with a low-protein diet, was less conclusive. The only changes to offspring that the researchers observed were some alterations in genes responsible for stem cell development.

According to the HuffingtonPost, The findings suggest RNA “” a chain of acids whose job is to help carry out the “blueprint” contained in DNA  “” may play a significant role in the health of the child. In the Chinese experiment, transfer RNAs seemed to carry the information from the father’s diet that later impacted the offspring’s health.

“Traditionally, the male contribution to a child has been thought to be limited to one half of the child’s DNA,” Dr. Oliver Rando, a biochemist at the University of Massachusetts Medical School and one of the study’s authors, told The Huffington Post.

“So this general idea that a father’s diet or environment can influence his children’s metabolism or other traits obviously challenges this way of thinking.”

New research also suggests that a prospective father’s diet may affect his fertility. Another recent study found environment and lifestyle factors “” including diet and exercise “” to be strongly linked to male reproductive health and infertility, potentially playing a role in decreasing birthrates globally.

Do you know any diet to boost men’s fertility?