Tomatoes are considered a superfood due to their high content of the antioxidant lycopene – a mineral that not only gives the plant its red pigment but also reduces the risk of cancer and cardiovascular disease. Now, a new study has found that lycopene does even more than that. It could help fight male infertility problems by boosting the size of sperm and enhancing their swimming capabilities.
There is a catch, however. The human body doesn’t absorb Lycopene well when a person eats the tomato naturally. So, to improve bioavailability, FutureYou Cambridge developed a tablet called LactoLycopene. This way, the compound could be taken orally, and people could get the benefits of Lycopene. The researchers used this supplement in their study. The study was published in the European Journal of Nutrition.
The Study
- Sixty healthy participants volunteered for a 12-week experiment.
- Thirty of the participants took the supplement in 14mg doses. The other thirty took placebos. Nobody involved knew who was taking the real tablet or the placebo.
The Results
- Those who had taken the supplement were found to have nearly 40% more fast-swimming sperm at the end of the 12 weeks compared to when they started.
- There were also visible improvements in shape and size.
Lead author Professor Allan Pacey, head of the University of Sheffield‘s department of oncology and metabolism, said:
We didn’t really expect that at the end of the study there would be any difference in the sperm from men who took the tablet versus those who took the placebo. When we decoded the results, I nearly fell off my chair. The improvement in morphology – the size and shape of the sperm – was dramatic.
Pacey suspects that the reason for the improvement has something to do with the antioxidant properties of lycopene – that they are preventing the sperm from getting damaged.
Future Plans
The next phase of the study will be to repeat the exercise in men that have fertility issues. They want to find out if the supplement can also increase sperm quality in those men. Like Sheena Lewis, a professor of reproductive medicine at Queen’s University Belfast, said:
This is a small study where the volunteers were healthy, not infertile, with sperm parameters close to normal. Hence it is difficult to extrapolate any lycopene benefits to infertile men with poor semen quality.
Meanwhile, the researchers also plan to see if LactoLycopene can help couples conceive without having to go through invasive fertility treatments. Now that they know it can help improve the sperm, they want to find out if the improved sperm can lead to higher pregnancy success rates.
