Elsevier

Fertility and Sterility

Volume 95, Issue 2, February 2011, Pages 625-630.e4
Fertility and Sterility

Male factor
Urine bisphenol-A (BPA) level in relation to semen quality

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fertnstert.2010.09.026Get rights and content

Objective

To determine whether urine bisphenol-A (BPA) levels are associated with lower semen quality.

Setting

Four regions in China where high exposure to BPA in the workplace existed.

Patient(s)

218 men with and without BPA exposure in the workplace.

Intervention(s)

None.

Main Outcome Measure(s)

Semen parameters.

Result(s)

After adjustment for potential confounders using linear regression, increasing urine BPA level was statistically significantly associated with [1] decreased sperm concentration, [2] decreased total sperm count, [3] decreased sperm vitality, and [4] decreased sperm motility. Compared with men who did not have detectable urine BPA levels, those with detectable urine BPA had more than three times the risk of lowered sperm concentration and lower sperm vitality, more than four times the risk of lower sperm count, and more than twice the risk of lower sperm motility. The urine BPA level was not associated with semen volume or abnormal sperm morphology. Similar dose-response associations were observed among men with environmental BPA exposure at levels comparable with those in the U.S population. Despite a markedly reduced sample size, the inverse correlation between increased urine BPA levels and decreased sperm concentration and total sperm count remained statistically significant.

Conclusion(s)

These results provide the first epidemiologic evidence of an adverse effect of BPA on semen quality.

Section snippets

Materials and methods

See the Supplemental Materials online for the full description. A detailed description of our study can be found elsewhere 21, 22. The following are brief descriptions of the study population and relevant methods.

Results

The distribution of BPA levels by the characteristics of the study population is presented in Supplemental Table 1 (available online). Participants with more advanced education and longer employment history had relatively lower BPA levels. The most important determining factor for a high BPA level in this study population was exposure to BPA in the workplace. There was no clear pattern of BPA distribution by age. The urine BPA level was not associated with marital status, a history of chronic

Discussion

Animal studies have shown that exposure to BPA could have detrimental effects on the male reproductive system 1, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 29. As a potent endocrine disruptor, BPA has been shown to have both estrogenic and antiandrogenic properties, which provides biological plausibility for an adverse effect of BPA on the male reproductive system. However, human studies examining this effect have been limited, and more studies are only now emerging. We recently reported on an increased risk of

Conclusion

This study presents for the first time evidence of an association between a BPA exposure biomarker (urine BPA level) and declining semen quality—specifically, reduced sperm concentration, total sperm count, vitality, and motility—in a human population. The association also demonstrated a dose-response relationship between increasing urine BPA level and reduction in semen quality among those with low environmental BPA exposure levels as well as those with high BPA exposure levels from the

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Roxana Odouli for her help in developing data collection instruments and preparing the manuscript; the participating factories for their cooperation; and staff at local Chinese Centers for Disease Control for their help with data collection.

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    D-K.L. has nothing to disclose. Z.J.Z. has nothing to disclose. M.M. has nothing to disclose. Y.H. has nothing to disclose. J.T.W. has nothing to disclose. J.F. has nothing to disclose. L.J.H. has nothing to disclose. E.S.G. has nothing to disclose. W.Y. has nothing to disclose.

    Supported by a grant from the U.S. National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) (R01 OH007580).

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