LONDON – Widespread antidepressant drugs may impair men’s fertility by destructing the DNA in their sperm, according to research, reported in New Scientist magazine.

A study conducted on thirty-five healthy men given paroxetine (Paxil or Seroxat) by GSK (GlaxoSmithKline) found that, the percentage of sperm cells with fragmented DNA rose from 13.8 % to 30.3 % after just four weeks treatment.

The researcher, Peter Schlegel and Cigdem Tanrikut of the Cornell Medical Center in New York concluded, “The fertility potential of a substantial proportion of men on paroxetine may be adversely affected by these changes in sperm DNA integrity.”

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The perinatal deaths and adverse consequences related to assisted fertilization (AF) with compare to spontaneous pregnancy could be associated with the causes of infertility rather than the procedure of AF, according to an article published July 31, 2008 in “The Lancet.”

Women of developing countries are delaying childbirth till the age of infertility is about to strike. Consequently, most of them are adopting the assisted reproductive technologies to conceive. High risk of adverse health outcomes in infants has been associated with the assisted fertilization, but it is hard to differentiate between the effects of the procedure itself from the effects, that might be inherent in the birthing couple.

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