TY - JOUR
T1 - Oral antioxidant treatment partly improves integrity of human sperm DNA in infertile grade i varicocele patients
AU - Gual-Frau, Josep
AU - Abad, Carlos
AU - Amengual, María J.
AU - Hannaoui, Naim
AU - Checa, Miguel A.
AU - Ribas-Maynou, Jordi
AU - Lozano, Iris
AU - Nikolaou, Alexandros
AU - Benet, Jordi
AU - García-Peiró, Agustín
AU - Prats, Juan
PY - 2015/1/1
Y1 - 2015/1/1
N2 - © 2015 The British Fertility Society. Infertile males with varicocele have the highest percentage of sperm cells with damaged DNA, compared to other infertile groups. Antioxidant treatment is known to enhance the integrity of sperm DNA; however, there are no data on the effects in varicocele patients. We thus investigated the potential benefits of antioxidant treatment specifically in grade I varicocele males. Twenty infertile patients with grade I varicocele were given multivitamins (1500 mg L-Carnitine, 60 mg vitamin C, 20 mg coenzyme Q10, 10 mg vitamin E, 200 g vitamin B9, 1 g vitamin B12, 10 mg zinc, 50 g selenium) daily for three months. Semen parameters including total sperm count, concentration, progressive motility, vitality, and morphology were determined before and after treatment. In addition, sperm DNA fragmentation and the amount of highly degraded sperm cells were analyzed by Sperm Chromatin Dispersion. After treatment, patients showed an average relative reduction of 22.1% in sperm DNA fragmentation (p = 0.02) and had 31.3% fewer highly degraded sperm cells (p = 0.07). Total numbers of sperm cells were increased (p = 0.04), but other semen parameters were unaffected. These data suggest that sperm DNA integrity in grade I varicocele patients may be improved by oral antioxidant treatment.
AB - © 2015 The British Fertility Society. Infertile males with varicocele have the highest percentage of sperm cells with damaged DNA, compared to other infertile groups. Antioxidant treatment is known to enhance the integrity of sperm DNA; however, there are no data on the effects in varicocele patients. We thus investigated the potential benefits of antioxidant treatment specifically in grade I varicocele males. Twenty infertile patients with grade I varicocele were given multivitamins (1500 mg L-Carnitine, 60 mg vitamin C, 20 mg coenzyme Q10, 10 mg vitamin E, 200 g vitamin B9, 1 g vitamin B12, 10 mg zinc, 50 g selenium) daily for three months. Semen parameters including total sperm count, concentration, progressive motility, vitality, and morphology were determined before and after treatment. In addition, sperm DNA fragmentation and the amount of highly degraded sperm cells were analyzed by Sperm Chromatin Dispersion. After treatment, patients showed an average relative reduction of 22.1% in sperm DNA fragmentation (p = 0.02) and had 31.3% fewer highly degraded sperm cells (p = 0.07). Total numbers of sperm cells were increased (p = 0.04), but other semen parameters were unaffected. These data suggest that sperm DNA integrity in grade I varicocele patients may be improved by oral antioxidant treatment.
KW - antioxidants
KW - chromatin dispersion
KW - L-carnitine
KW - Male factor infertility
KW - sperm
KW - sperm DNA
KW - varicocele
U2 - 10.3109/14647273.2015.1050462
DO - 10.3109/14647273.2015.1050462
M3 - Article
SN - 1464-7273
VL - 18
SP - 225
EP - 229
JO - Human Fertility
JF - Human Fertility
IS - 3
ER -