Can a vegetarian diet affect a man’s fertility?

Apparently yes. Well so says a new study that reckons tofu (poor old tofu again) in large quantities could lower sperm count.

So really, although we used the word vegetarian in our headline (as did everyone else covering the story), it’s really about anyone who eats tofu, or indeed soya quite a lot. Which a lot of people – veggie or otherwise – do.

The researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health, in Boston, USA, found that men who ate an average of half a serving of soya food every day had lower concentrations of sperm than those who didn’t.

The effects were worse in overweight or obese men.

What causes this?

Soya contains compounds called isoflavones that mimic oestrogen (female hormones). In other studies, animals who eat a lot of isoflavones exhibited infertility. It hadn’t been thought the same was true of humans, until now.

Dr Jorge Chavarro, who led the study, said:

“The implication is that men who have normal or high sperm counts may be more susceptible to soy foods than men with low sperm counts.”

Source: Daily Mail

Image: Morguefile.com

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