Men who eat apricots and mangoes have more luck making babies than those who don’t, according to new research that shows certain antioxidants help boost male fertility. Male sperm with higher levels of antioxidants was more likely to successfully fertilise the female’s eggs, according to a study by the University of Western Australia and Monash University.
Diet high in certain antioxidants boosts male fertility
But rather than sipping on a cup of tea, men needed antioxidants from foods rich in Vitamin E and beta-carotene, such as pumpkin, mangoes, apricots, carrots, spinach, parsley, vegetable oils, avocados, nuts, seeds and whole grains.
Strengthened sperm was more likely to fight off the free radicals that act as a defence in the woman’s body. The research, published in the prestigious journal Ecology Letters, used crickets to pit the sperm of several males against each other in the competition to fertilise the female’s eggs.
“It is fair to say that the sperm are at war within the female, and we can expect that the most competitive sperm will win the race to the egg,” UWA’s Centre for Evolutionary Biology Winthrop Professor Leigh Simmons said. “Our study showed that the sperm of males who were fed antioxidants were easily able to outclass the sperm of rival males who were deprived of antioxidants.”
