WEDNESDAY, Oct. 25 (HealthDay News) -- Men with normal sperm counts who use cell phones for more than four hours a day have significantly lower sperm counts than those who do not, according to a study presented at the 62nd Annual Meeting of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine in New Orleans.
Ashok Agarwal, Ph.D., of the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, and colleagues conducted a study of 364 men who underwent evaluation for infertility. The men were divided into three groups based on sperm count and into four groups according to cell phone use.
Among the men classified as having a normal sperm count (more than 20 million per mL), the average sperm count was 86 million sperm per mL, with 68 percent motility and 40 percent normal forms in men who did not use a cell phone. In comparison, those who clocked more than four hours' mobile phone use per day had 66 million sperm per mL, 48 percent motility and 21 percent normal forms.
"The use of cell phones by men undergoing infertility evaluation is strongly associated with a decrease in sperm quality. The effects do not depend on the initial semen quality of the subjects. Large-scale studies are needed to identify the mechanism involved in the reduction of semen quality," the authors conclude.
Abstract
