PT42 - ADHERENCE TO HEALTHY EATING PATTERNS AND SEMEN QUALITY PARAMETERS

PT42

ADHERENCE TO HEALTHY EATING PATTERNS AND SEMEN QUALITY PARAMETERS

T. Konstantinou^1,*, D. Karayiannis², M. Kontogianni¹, N. Yiannakouris¹

¹Department of Nutrition and Dietetics, School of Health Sciences & Education, Harokopio University, ²Department of Clinical Nutrition, Evangelismos General Hospital, Athens, Greece

Rationale: Recent reports have suggested that men's dietary habits influence semen quality. This study aimed at investigating the relationship between adherence to two a-priori defined healthy dietary scores and semen parameters.

Methods: In a sample of 243 males (26-55 years of age; median BMI: 25.2 kg/m²), dietary habits were assessed through a food frequency questionnaire from which two dietary scores were calculated: the Prospective Urban Rural Epidemiology (PURE) diet score (range: 0-6) and the Healthy Eating Index (HEI-2020) (range: 0-100), with higher scores indicating greater adherence to a healthy diet. Sperm quality was assessed according to World Health Organization 2020 guidelines. Multiple logistic regression analysis was used to evaluate associations between tertiles of PURE and HEI-2020 and the likelihood of having abnormal semen parameters, after adjusting for potential confounders.

Results: Compared to men in the lowest tertile of the PURE and HEI-2020 scores, a lower percentage of men in the highest teritle of the scores exhibited below the WHO 2020 reference values for total sperm count (23.1% vs. 60.0% and 25.6% vs. 61.0%, respectively), sperm concentration (20.2% vs. 56.0% and 20.9% vs. 58.5%, respectively), total motility (46.2% vs. 76.0% and 45.3% vs. 80.5%, respectively), progressive motility (52.9% vs. 78.7% and 53.5% vs. 81.7%, respectively) and sperm morphology (34.6% vs. 53.3% and 34.9% vs. 56.1%, respectively) (all P≤0.04). In the multivariate adjusted models, men with the highest adherence to the PURE and HEI-2020 scores had lower probability of having abnormal values of total sperm count, sperm concentration, and sperm total and progressive motility (PURE: 57-78%, P<0.05; HEI-2020: 58-74%, P<0.05).

Conclusion: The results suggest that changes in dietary habits towards enhancing the adoption of a healthy pattern may contribute to improving the quality of men's sperm.

Disclosure of Interest: None declared