Elsevier

Fertility and Sterility

Volume 95, Issue 6, May 2011, Pages 2018-2023.e3
Fertility and Sterility

Male factor
Semen quality analysis of military personnel from six geographical areas of the People’s Republic of China

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fertnstert.2011.02.052Get rights and content

Objective

To examine the determinants of semen quality in a large sample of military personnel from different geographical areas of the People’s Republic of China.

Design

Cross-sectional study.

Setting

Six representative geographical regions in China: Beihai, Lhasa, Germu, Xinzhou, Huhehaote, and Mohe.

Patient(s)

1,194 army personnel aged 18 to 35 years at the time of their inclusion in the study, sampled between 2007 and 2009.

Intervention(s)

None.

Main Outcome Measure(s)

Semen volume (in milliliters), sperm concentration (in millions per milliliter), percentage of motile spermatozoa, total sperm count (in millions), and relative risk of subfertility.

Result(s)

The median values were 3.0 mL for semen volume, 39.4 × 106 per mL for sperm concentration, 120.1 × 106 for total sperm count, 15.8% for sperm rapid progressive motility, 30.1% for sperm progressive motility, and 43.9% for total motility. We found that 88.3% of the servicemen had at least one semen parameter below normal values according to World Health Organization (WHO) recommendations (1999), and 62.5% according to WHO recommendations (2010). Season, average altitude, and duration of sexual abstinence all were statistically significantly associated with semen quality.

Conclusion(s)

The men had markedly lower mean sperm concentrations, sperm counts, and sperm motility compared with WHO recommendations. Possible contributory factors included diet, lifestyle, climate, and altitude.

Section snippets

Study Design

China has a wide variety of geographic environments, including tropical and cold zones, upland plateaus and plains, and coastal and inland regions. Six districts where military personnel are posted and which are geographically representative of the country’s regional characteristics were selected: Beihai (Guangxi province, coastal tropical zone), Lhasa (Tibet autonomous region, cold plateau), Germu (Qinghai province, cold plateau), Xinzhou (Shanxi province, inland plains), Huhehaote (Inner

Results

The general biological characteristics of the 1,194 men are summarized in Table 1. A large majority of the men (95.9%) were 18 to 30 years old, their mean ages ranged from 24.3 years old (Lhasa) to 26.4 years old (Xinzhou), and their mean period of military service was 5.3 years. A majority of 1,075 (90.0%) participants also reported zero alcohol consumption, and 2.6% had an average daily tobacco exceeding 10 cigarettes. Only 23 (1.9%) participants were married. The mean duration of sexual

Discussion

The study showed statistically significantly lower proportions of sperm concentration (74.1%), count (79.6%), and motility (43.7%) than the 1999 WHO reference range, and only 11.7% of participants had all normal semen parameters according to these WHO recommendations. More recently, WHO (2010) revised the semen reference values (23) by studying the semen parameter distributions of men whose partners had a time-to-pregnancy (TTP) up to and including 12 months. The new criteria, including semen

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    • Cited by (0)

    Z.Z. has nothing to disclose. H.H has nothing to disclose. M.S. has nothing to disclose. Y.S. has nothing to disclose. X.G. has nothing to disclose. K.M. has nothing to disclose. A.H.B. has nothing to disclose. W.W. has nothing to disclose.

    Supported by Project of National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 30972991; 30901238), Project of Military Medical Science Foundation of PLA (No. 08G046), Project for Academic Human Resources Development in Institutions of Beijing Municipality (PHR201008393), Chinese Government 11th Five Year Plan Grant (2010ZX09401), and Major State Basic Research Program-973 of China (No. 2011CB503806). All authors worked independently of any funders.

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