Dietary fatty acid intakes and asthenozoospermia: a case-control study.

Objective: To investigate the association between dietary fatty acids intakes and asthenozoospermia.

Design: Case-control study.

Setting: Infertility clinics.

Patient(s): A total of 107 men with incident asthenozoospermia and 235 age-matched controls.

Intervention(s): None.

Main Outcome Measure(s): Assessments of dietary intakes, semen quality, anthropometry, endocrine parameters, and demographic information.

Result(s): According to the fully adjusted model, being in the highest tertile of total saturated fatty acids (odds ratio [OR] = 1.85, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.24-2.96), total trans-fatty acids (OR = 2.53, 95% CI 1.54-3.92), palmitic acid (OR = 1.90, 95% CI 1.26-2.74), and stearic acid (OR = 2.13, 95% CI 1.29-3.88) was positively associated with asthenozoospermia. Whereas higher intakes of omega-3 polyunsaturated (OR = 0.68, 95% CI 0.58-0.94) and of docosahexaenoic (OR = 0.53, 95% CI 0.29-0.89) fatty acids were significantly associated with reduced odds of asthenozoospermia.

Conclusion(s): Our findings suggest that the high intake of saturated and trans-fats was positively related to the odds of having asthenozoospermia. Conversely, inverse and dose-dependent associations were found between asthenozoospermia and intake of omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids. The observed associations of different types of fatty acids underline the importance of the type of fat in the etiology of asthenozoospermia.