People engaged in painting and decorating works needs to be more careful as a chemical- glycol ethers present in the emulsions can cause poor semen quality and eventually make them infertile.
The research conducted by scientists from the Universities of Sheffield and Manchester found that men who work with solvents such as glycol ether have great risk of exposure to low sperm counts.
Infertility in men, in general, can be caused by several reasons. But, the researchers here in their attempt to find out the occupational risk of male infertility at work place through chemical exposure had undertaken 14 fertility clinics in 11 cities across the Britain and examined 2,118 working men.
And, after the examination they came on conclusion that men such as painters or decorators who are in continuous exposure to glycol ether have 2.5 times more chance to get low motile sperm count as compared to men with low exposure.
Sperm motility is a vital factor in the fertility of men and the concentration of motile sperm per ejaculate has shown to be linked with conception. Besides, the size and shape of sperm and the quality of sperm, DNA is also important factors that may be affected by chemical exposure.
Apart from glycol ether there are few chemicals which are continuous threat to male fertility and are also other non-chemical factors which can create infertility. For instance, the researchers said that men who had undergone surgery to the testicles in the past or men who undertook manual work were also having under threat to infertility.
Drunkers have good news as researchers discovered that men who drank on a regular basis or who wore boxer shorts were in better position to have better semen quality.
“We know that certain glycol ethers can affect male fertility and the use of these has reduced over the past two decades. But after research we came on the conclusion that these chemicals are still in use at some workplace, which needs to be checked soon,” said Dr. Andy Povey, senior lecturer in Molecular Epidemiology at the University of Manchester.
Glycol ethers are chiefly used in many products comprising water based paints, which is extensively used by painters and decorators.
The findings from the research have been published in the BMJ journal Occupational Environmental Medicine.
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