What are the effects of alcohol on sperm?

For male friends, drinking alcohol is something that they will encounter during social events, or during the Chinese New Year or other festivals, but drinking too much alcohol is very bad for your body. Especially for male friends who want to have children, they must not touch alcohol, as it will affect their sperm and even the quality of fertility. So let us understand the impact of alcohol on sperm.

Main impact:

Effect of alcohol on spermatogenesis: In the seminiferous tubules of the testes, sperms need androgen from the beginning to maturity, that is, testosterone is indispensable from spermatogonia to spermatocytes, immature sperm cells to mature sperms. Alcohol causes a decrease in testosterone in the testes, which is the main cause of spermatogenesis disorders.

It was also found that 50%-70% of men whose testicles atrophy and become smaller due to drinking alcohol become infertile. In addition, drinking alcohol can also induce chronic prostatitis, which can affect fertility by causing semen to not liquefy, sperm count to decrease, sperm survival rate and motility to decrease, and deformity rate to increase.

Results from a prospective epidemiological survey and animal experiments show that alcohol is a teratogen. Excessive drinking during pregnancy can cause teratogenicity, stillbirth, delayed growth, central nervous system abnormalities, and behavioral defects. A French medical journal once reported on 127 children born to mothers who drank excessively. Their height, weight, and head circumference were lower than those of normal fetuses at birth. The most characteristic changes later on were small palpebral fissures, short noses, low nose bridges, and mental activity disorders.

Alcohol abuse can reduce a man's ability and damage his sperm. Alcohol is the most common killer of men's fertility. Alcohol abuse can reduce androgen levels. Excessive drinking can poison the testicles and reduce androgen levels; it can also cause abnormal liver function, reduce the inactivation of estrogen, and thus lead to estrogen accumulation, thereby relatively weakening the effect of androgen, making it difficult for men to "become virile". Fertility requires a man's sperm to meet and combine with a woman's egg. In this process, sperm needs to release apical enzymes to dissolve the outer membrane of the egg. Excessive levels of estrogen in men can cause sperm to release apical enzymes in advance before they meet the egg, but when they are really needed, they cannot release this enzyme to destroy the outer membrane of the egg. Even if the sperm damaged by alcohol conceives the egg, it is possible to give birth to a low-ability child. Foreign countries call this kind of child "Sunday child", believing that it is the result of a couple getting pregnant after drinking heavily on the weekend.

Long-term alcoholics are prone to chronic alcoholism. Once chronic alcoholism occurs, the patient will suffer from testicular atrophy, which will lead to a decline in the quality of semen. Studies have found that it takes at least three months of conditioning to recover from a drunken state. Experts believe that men who are planning to have children should wait at least three months after being drunk before letting their wives conceive, in order to ensure the health of the fetus.

The above article has given you a detailed introduction to the effects of alcohol on sperm. I believe that everyone has a relatively preliminary understanding. If you want to have a child now, don’t touch alcohol anymore. If you have drunk alcohol, you still need to go to the hospital for a detailed examination.