Sons of fathers who smoke have 51% lower sperm count

Studies have repeatedly linked maternal smoking during pregnancy with reduced sperm counts in male offspring. Now a research team at Lund University in Sweden has discovered that, independently of nicotine exposure from the mother, men whose fathers smoked at the time of pregnancy had half as many sperms as those with non-smoking fathers. The study was conducted on 104 Swedish men aged between 17 and 20. Once the researchers had adjusted for the mother's own exposure to nicotine, socioeconomic factors, and the sons' own smoking, men with fathers who smoked had a 41 percent lower sperm concentration and 51 percent fewer sperm than men with non-smoking fathers. The research team at Lund University is the first to have reported this finding. "I was very surprised that, regardless of the mother's level of exposure to nicotine, the sperm count of the men whose fathers smoked was so much lower", says Jonatan Axelsson, the specialist physician in occupational and environmental medicine.