RIGHT at the outset, your columnist would like to inform our dear readers and remind them that the vision and mission, so to speak, of this column is to bring to the community issues as well as breakthroughs in the field of medicine with the purpose of raising awareness of the importance of sound nutrition and optimum health to have a truly enjoyable productive life.
It is further emphasized that it does not and will never impose any restrictions on the lifestyle of anyone but rather would provide only objective findings and results of many research studies and clinical trials whose conclusions can always be taken with a grain of salt by our readers.
Your columnist believes that life is made up of choices, thus one’s reaction to our articles, is at the end of the day, definitely an individual personal decision.
That said, we can now proceed with the issue of alcoholism, which was brought up because of some of our citizens, in the face of all these rains and chilly weather, to keep their bodies warm have resorted to “some shots” of alcohol, on top of hot coffee and steaming soup, asked about the possible effects of alcohol-ethyl alcohol or ethanol- on their health.
A recent study revealed that alcohol consumption, whether in acute binge quantities or in prolonged period of time, meaning habitual, led to a negative effects of the quality of semen and sperm production.
Investigators administered questionnaires and collected semen samples from 36 healthy male volunteers of reproductive age, ranging from 20-26 years. A comprehensive information on medical history, medications past and current and alcohol consumption was done.
Basic sperm parameters involved highly sensitive biochemical tests like enzymes superoxide dismutase, glutathione peroxidase (strong anti-oxidants) while fructose and citric acid levels- important biomarkers of the status of the seminal vesicles and prostate were also measured.
In a nutshell, in its simplified form of the results, there were defects noted in the head and body of sperm cells which could be attributed to the effect of alcohol on the testicles- the production of sperm cells occur in the seminiferous tubules) and in the epididymis- where immature young sperm cells attain its adult mature form ready to fertilize an egg. Likewise, it was noted that there was a significant decrease in the volume or amount of semen ejected per ejaculation.
The findings suggest that consumption of high amounts of alcohol on a daily basis and even in an intermittent (on and off) schedule are associated with decreased semen quality and some defects in the morphology (form and structure) of sperm cells.