The amount of perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) that mothers had in their blood during pregnancyaffected their sons’ semen quality at 20 years old. These findings appear in a recent study from Aarhus University Hospital, Denmark, in which the Norwegian Institute of Public Healthparticipated.
Researchers had proposed hypotheses that increasing exposure to hormone-disrupting substances in the environment may be a contributory factor to reduced sperm quality. Therefore this study was initiated and found the following:
- The sons of mothers with the highest concentrations of PFOA in the bloodduring pregnancy had a lower sperm concentration and total sperm count than the sons of mothers with the lowest PFOA levels.
- A positive association was also found between PFOA exposure before birth and elevated levels of luteinising hormone (LH) and follicle stimulating hormone (FSH) in the sons’ blood. Read full article.