Aside from its high nutritional value, walnuts have now been found to boost sperm health and quality as medical scientists say just eating two handfuls daily could do this effectively.
Published in the most recent edition of the journal of Biology of Reproduction, the study involved 117 men between the ages of 21 and 35, who were divided into two groups.
One of the groups was made to add 75 grams of walnuts to their daily diet while members of the other group continued their usual diet.
The result was that the shape of the sperm, its movement and vitality improved in the men who ate walnuts with their diet within the 12 weeks.
The researchers said the fatty acids found in walnuts nuts had helped sperm development.
Confirming the result, the lead researcher, Prof. Wendie Robbins, from UCLA’s Fielding School of Public Health said: “We found a significant improvement in sperm parameters in the group that consumed the walnuts. Sperm quality improved in terms of concentration, vitality, movement, shape and chromosome abnormalities,” as the result had shown.
Supporting the confirmation of the result, co-author Catherine Carpenter, explained that “walnuts provide a particularly rich source of a-linolenic acid, a natural plant source of omega-3, which we suspect may have been responsible for the improvements we observed.”
Researchers say one in six couples are infertile, with 40 per cent of these problems attributed to men and their eating habits.
It is believed that infertility in men may be the result of too few sperm being made, or that the sperm have poor swimming ability, size or shape.
Earlier research had also shown that men who ate junk foods (fast food) had heavy chances of experiencing infertility.
The researchers have said the next step is to work with couples who are attending infertility clinics to determine if placing the men, with poor semen quality, on a walnut diet would yield good fruit.
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