chronic environmental exposure to lead affects semen quality in a mexican men population

background: male infertility is affected by several factors. lead is one of the heavy metals more bioavailable than usually modifies the sperm quality in humans. objective: the aim of this study was to establish the role of lead in semen quality in environmentally exposed men. materials and methods: semen and blood samples were obtained from two groups: the exposed group (eg=20) and the non-exposed group (neg=27). two semen aliquots were used, one to evaluate spermatic quality and the other for lead determination. blood (pbb) and semen lead (pbs) determination was performed by atomic absorption spectrophotometry. results: the pbb concentration was significantly greater in the eg, 10.10±0.97 μgdl-1 than in the neg, 6.42±0.38 μgdl-1 (p<0.01), as well as the pbs concentration, with 3.28±0.35 and 1.76±0.14μgdl-1 in the eg and neg respectively (p=0.043). a significant correlation between pbs and pbb concentration in the eg was found (r=0.573, p=0.038). overall, the spermatic quality was lower in the eg than in the neg. specifically, there were significant differences in the spermatic concentration [eg=43.98±6.26 and neg=68.78±8.51x106 cellml-1 (p<0.01)], motility [eg=49±7 and neg=67±4% (p=0.029)], viability [eg=36.32±3.59 and neg=72.12±1.91% (p<0.01)] and abnormal morphology [eg=67±18 and neg=32±12% (p<0.01)]. in the immature germ cells (igc) concentration differences were found only for a cells (eg=8.1±1.1x100 and neg=3.2±1.9x100 spermatozoa) (p<0.01) and for sab cells (eg=3.4±2.2x100 and neg=1.1±1.0x100 spermatozoa) (p=0.041). conclusion: these results suggest that chronic environmental exposure to low levels of lead adversely affect the spermatic quality.