fondueCheese and sperm: These are two words I don't like seeing together. And yet, I feel compelled to tell you about this recent study linking cheese-eating with sperm quality. According to the Daily Mail, a study by the Harvard School of Public Health shows that young men who eat three or more servings of cheese or other full-fat dairy a day had poorer-quality sperm than men who don't. They found a full 25 percent difference in quality!

Researchers will present their study at the American Society for Reproductive Medicine’s annual conference this week, just in case you were wondering if this was a totally made-up Daily Mail kind of story. (I sure was!) Anyway, they think it's the hormones, specifically the female hormone oestrogen, and maybe pesticides from the cows' feed as well. So what to do if you're trying to conceive?

Well, don't let your man give up on dairy altogether. Dr. Allan Pacey, a fertility expert at the University of Sheffield and probably not at all made up by the Daily Mail (what's with my trust issues???), says it's not a big deal. He says this much change in semen quality wouldn't worry him at his fertility clinic. It's not like all the sperm is damaged, just a bit of it. Also, have you noticed lately how much semen men have? So much.

And the researchers point out that eating dairy doesn't necessarily kill sperm, it's just that poorer-quality sperm and cheese-eating seem to go hand-in-hand. You know, that correlation-is-not-causation thing.

So no worries! I think this is one of those tiny, funky little findings that the researchers will puzzle over while the rest of us continue living the way we usually do. As you were, cheese-eating stallions!

Do you think what you eat can have much impact on your fertility?

 

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