Young men who eat more than three slices of cheese a day may risk their chances of becoming fathers, a new study has revealed. Even small amounts of full-fat dairy food have been shown to dramatically impair their fertility. Harvard academics have discovered that men who eat just three portions a day had poorer quality sperm compared to others. A portion included an ounce of cheese (28g), a teaspoon of cream, a scoop of ice cream or glass of full-fat milk.
The researchers believe that female hormones that occur naturally in milk may be interfering with men’s ability to reproduce.
Until recently, experts have been far more concerned with how women’s diets are affecting their chanced of having children.
But there is increasing evidence that men’s lifestyles – and crucially what they eat – may be just as important. Scientist from the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, the US, compared the diets of 189 men aged 19 to 25. None were overweight – they were all very fit and did at least one and a half hour’s exercise a week.
They had each filled in a questionnaire answering how often they ate dairy products, fruit, meat and other types of food during a typical week. The researchers also looked at their sperm, including how fast it travelled and its shape. They found that the sperm of men who ate more than three portions of full-fat dairy food a day was 25 percent poorer quality than those who had less. Myriam Afeiche, who led the study, explained that the female hormone oestrogen in milk that had come from the cow may be affecting men’s fertility. It may also be impaired by pesticides which find their way in to dairy products, she added. Meanwhile, an Australian study has found that folic acid supplements taken by expectant mothers can reduce the risk of their babies developing a brain tumour during childhood by almost half.
This is the result of a five-year study by the Australian Childhood Brain Tumour Consortium (Aus-CBT), led by Elizabeth Milne, professor at Telethon Institute for Child Health Research.
The study stands out as the largest and most comprehensive national research done so far on this topic, the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention reports.
“We were specifically targeting FA-intake following from a similar national study on childhood leukaemia and building on the local finding that taking FA can reduce its risk,” Milne says, according to a Aus-CBT statement.
Previous reports on the protective effects of multivitamin use on childhood brain tumour (CBT) development were not able to pinpoint the most active constituent in the mix. Aus-CBT has been the first to separate out multivitamin effects and investigate the link between the intake of FA alone, or combined with iron, vitamin A, B6, B12 or C and its connection with diagnosis of CBT in offspring. “Indeed it was FA that appeared to be responsible for a (negative diagnosis) association, but it does not harm if it is taken in combination with other micronutrients,” Milne says. Folate is required for reliable DNA synthesis and repair and Milne says: “There are lots of points where a folate deficiency can lead to malignant cell transformation and disease.”
