Onm-17: The Effect of Stress on Semen Quality

s:2728:"Background: Rapid industrialization, environmental pollution, changing living conditions and unfavourable working conditions cause stress to the people which may play an important role in developing several disorders. Sress is one of the most important health and social problems. Physchological stress has long been suspected of having an important impact on infertility . There is a great deal of data describing the impact of emotional stress on the female reproductive health but the relationship between emotional stress and male fecundity is debated . The aim of this review article is to study the effect of stress on semen quality. Materials and Methods: This review article prepared by studdying of articles obtained from Google, pub med sites with Keywords such as : male infertility; psychology , emotional stress Results: Gollenberg et al. (2010) studied 744 fertile men and after adjusting for confounders , men reporting more recent stressful life events had an increased risk of being classified below WHO thresholds for "normal" defined by concentration, motility, and morphology criteria compared with men reporting <2 stressful life events (odds ratio [OR] = 2.06; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.18, 3.61; OR = 1.54; 95% CI, 1.04, 2.29; OR = 1.93; 95% CI, 1.02, 3.66 for concentration, motility and morphology, respectively). Men experiencing 2+ stressful life events had lower sperm concentration (log scale, beta = -0.25; 95% CI, -0.38, -0.11) and lower percent motile sperm (beta = -1.95; 95% CI, -3.98, 0.07), but percent normal morphology was less affected. Lampiao et al. (2009) studied variation of semen parameters in healthy medical students due to exam stress and found that sperm concentration was significantly decreased in samples donated close the exam period compared to samples donated at the begining of the semester. Eskiocak et al. (2005) showed during stress period , stress scores and SOD (super oxide dismutase) activity increased significantly compared to non stress period. They observed about 50 percent decrease in the semen quality markers such as density ,percent rapid progressive motility and motility index (p<0.001). Collodel G. etal. (2008) showed miotic and structural alterations in sperm cells. Among sperm pathologies necrosis and apoptosis of sperm were higher than normal values. Conclusion: These results suggest that stressful life events may be associated with decreased semen quality in fertile men. The experience of psychosocial stress may be a modifiable factor in the development of idiopathic infertility. These results indicated that health programs focusing on lifestyle and psychological health would be helpful for male reproductive health. ";