In contrast to a woman’s reproductive state where she was born with all the eggs she’ll ever need for reproduction, a man needs to produce sperm in seemingly endless fashion to be able to reproduce. Hence, a man’s daily lifestyle and diet can affect the sperm’s quality and ability to fertilize an egg.
Poor lifestyle habits such as inactivity, lack of exercise, poor nutrition, stress, drugs, drinking and smoking can all lead to weaker and fewer sperm. Age can also be a factor since it was discovered just recently that sperm quality begins to lessen at 25 years of age.
Sperm quality can be determined through five characteristics: sperm morphology (size and shape), concentration, count, speed and motility. A deficiency in any of these attributes can impair the possibility of conception.
Morphology (size and size) – Healthy sperm cells resemble the shape of a tadpole. The head of the sperm is where the male’s genetic content lies. The center gives energy to move and the tail helps the sperm to move forward. Researchers have come to the conclusion that improper shaped sperm has no ability to fertilize an egg.
Concentration – This is a count of sperm cells in a milliliter of semen. Good concentration is a minimum 20 million sperm cells per milliliter of semen. The use of acupuncture Jacksonville and herbal medicine in various acupuncture treatment for male infertility increased concentration after treatments lasting four months.
Sperm Count – This is the total amount of sperm that comes out of the penis during orgasm. On average, around 40 million sperm ejaculate during orgasm. Anything less than that may mean infertility problem. Acupuncture and herbal medicine increased the amount of sperm by 14% as shown in many acupuncture infertility studies.
Speed – This means the sperm’s forward motion. The World Health Organization studied that there are around a fourth of healthy sperm in a healthy male and this number is good enough to achieve conception. Studies have proven that acupuncture combined with herbal formulas improved the sperm’s forward motion by 60%
Motility – Sperm motility is a term that means how strong the sperm is when traveling towards the egg. Healthy sperm will indicate that half of the sperm travel in an active manner while a fourth vigorously travel forward towards the egg. Good sperm motility means that the sperm is capable of traveling the cervical canal, uterus, the fallopian tubes and, finally, to come inside the egg.
Many researches regarding acupuncture and herbal supplements and medicine have shown that these modalities to create an impact in terms of sperm quantity and quality. The sperm motility, morphology and not only are the ones that gain substantial improvement but sperm fragmentation is addressed as well by these treatments.