Male consumers struggling to conceive may be able to blame their personal care routines, a recent study has suggested.
Research in Poland found that men using parabens in grooming products were more likely to have abnormally-shaped sperm and sperm that does not move as well as it should.
Sperm and urine were collected from 315 men and tested for the preservatives butylparaben, ethylparaben, isobutylparaben, methylparaben and propylparaben, found in cosmetics and personal care products.
The researchers found that the higher the concentration of parabens, the more likely the sperm was to be atypical.
Higher levels of butylparaben was also linked to greater chances of DNA damage in the sperm, raising concerns of infertility due to decreased sperm mobility and the inability to reach a woman’s egg.
Another recent study from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, found that sperm counts among western men have more than halved in 40 years – and the reasons are unclear.
The findings revealed that between 1973 and 2011, the concentration of sperm has fallen by an average of 1.4% a year, leading to an overall drop of 52%.
