Men Who Smoke Should Worry About the Quality of Their Sperm 
 
 Smoking is associated with a long list of harmful health factors.The latest negative side effect to be added to the list is poor sperm – the sperm of male smokers have more DNA damage than non-smokers’.In order to evaluate the effect of smoking on sperm functional quality and seminal plasma proteomic profile, researchers conducted sperm functional tests in 20 smoking men and 20 non-smoking men with normal semen quality.The various sperm functional tests included:· Evaluation of DNA fragmentation by alkaline Comet assay· Analysis of mitochondrial activity using DAB staining· Acrosomal integrity evaluation by PNA bindingAccording to the study results, participants in the smoking category had a higher percentage of sperm DNA damage, partially and fully inactive mitochondria, and non-intact acrosomes when compared with the control group.The research team also assessed 422 proteins in the participants’ sperm and found that one was absent, 27 proteins were underrepresented, and six were over-represented in smokers.Experts deduced that cigarette smoking contributed to an inflammatory response in the accessory glands and in the testis, which causes an alteration in sperm functional quality.What does this mean?The harmful effects of smoking on male fertility can be as extreme as decreased capacity of sperm to achieve fertilization and generate a healthy pregnancy.“It is especially noteworthy that, in our study, sperm DNA fragmentation was increased. Other studies have proposed this to be a potentially promutagenic effect, which is to say that sperm with altered DNA may lead to health problems in the offspring,” the authors concluded. 

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 Everyone knows that a woman who smokes and plans to become pregnant should stop smoking. A new study suggests that the future father should quit, too. 
 
 Brazilian researchers analyzed the sperm of 20 smokers and 20 nonsmokers and found that the smokers’ sperm was damaged in ways that could reduce the chance of fertilization and might also lead to health problems in the baby. 
 
 The DNA in smokers’ sperm was fragmented, probably because of oxidative stress from the cadmium and nicotine in cigarette smoke. Sperm DNA fragmentation has been shown in other studies to be associated with an increased risk of genetic problems in the offspring as well as with an increased risk of childhood cancer. Mitochondria, the energy centers of cells, were also less active in the sperm of smokers. 
 
 The study, in BJU International, also found that smokers had a larger percentage of nonintact acrosomes, the part of the head of the sperm that releases enzymes that allow the sperm to penetrate the ovum’s shell. And the researchers discovered alterations in the proteins in smokers’ seminal plasma that might impair fertilization. 
 
 “All these effects were found in smokers,” said the senior author, Ricardo Pimenta Bertolla of the São Paulo Federal University. The message, he said, is straightforward: Smoking alters a man’s capacity to produce sperm that can successfully fertilize an egg.
– Need another reason to keep your distance from cigarettes? For men, smoking appears to damage their sperm and potentially their offspring, too. Reporting in the journal BJU International, researchers say that men who smoke have a higher percentage of damage to sperm DNA; they had partially and sometimes totally inactive mitochondria, which power cells; and the part of the sperm that releases the very enzymes that enable sperm to penetrate the shell of the ovum was less likely to be intact. Researchers looked at 422 proteins present in sperm, and found that among the smokers, one was absent, 27 underrepresented, and six overrepresented. The study was small, with researchers analyzing the sperm of only 20 smokers and 20 nonsmokers, but senior author Ricardo Pimenta Bertolla of the São Paulo Federal University tells the New York Times that the message is clear: Smoking has a detrimental impact on a man's ability to produce sperm that will be able to fertilize an egg, and that impact could extend to the fetus. "Sperm with altered DNA may lead to health problems in the offspring," the researchers conclude. MD Magazine notes that researchers think smoking triggers an inflammatory response in the testis and in certain glands that could diminish sperm quality. (Smoking can even damage the DNA of your grandkids.)