Could a healthy salad or juicy apple lower one's sperm count? New research suggests eating fruits and vegetables containing higher levels of pesticides could have this unfortunate effect.
Some produce known to contain higher concentrations of pesticide residue levels includes, strawberries, spinach, and peppers, the Harvard School of Public Health reported.
"To our knowledge, this is the first report to link consumption of pesticide residues in fruits and vegetables, a primary exposure route for most people, to an adverse reproductive health outcome in humans," said Jorge Chavarro, assistant professor of nutrition and epidemiology and the study's senior author.
To make their findings a team of researchers looked at data from 151 men enrolled in the Environment and Reproductive Health (EARTH) study, the data included 338 semen samples provided between 2007 and 2012 and information about the participants' diets. They factored in pesticide levels of different fruits and vegetables as well as other health factors such as smoking and body weight.
The data showed men who ate greater amounts (1,5 servings a day) of fruits and vegetables in the high pesticide group had 49 percent lower sperm count and 32 percent 32 percent lower percentage of normal sperm than men who ate the lowest levels (less than 0.5 servings per day).
"These findings should not discourage the consumption of fruit and vegetables in general," Chavarro said. "In fact, we found that consuming more fruits and vegetables with low pesticide residues was beneficial. This suggests that implementing strategies specifically targeted at avoiding pesticide residues, such as consuming organically-grown produce or avoiding produce known to have large amounts of residues, may be the way to go."
The findings were published in a recent edition of the journal Human Reproduction.
