Background: Epidemiological studies have reported a consistent decrease in the quality of semen and man fertility during the last decade, due to multifactorial environmental and lifestyle changes.
The cellular media has become extremely common and essential during the last couple of years. One of the possible health effects of cellular radiation is semen quality. Studies regarding the correlation between use of cellular phones and male fertility are still inconclusive.
Objectives: To explore the connection between exposure to cellular radiation and quality of semen in man referred to sperm analysis.
Material & Methods: In this prospective study, we included 106 men referred to our Andrology laboratory for semen analysis. Through a detailed questionnaire parameters associated with habits of using cellular phones and their correlation to semen quality were recorded and analyzed. Confounding factors such as age, ethnicity, smoking, health status were extracted.
Results: Normal semen concentration was higher among Jewish compared with Muslim men and non-smokers compared with smokers. Men with normal semen concentration spent less total time on daily phone conversations. Correlation was found between talking on the cellular phone while being charged and semen concentration. A multivariate analysis showed that two independent variables- smoking and talking on the cellular phone while being charged independently correlated with semen concentration.
Conclusion: We demonstrated a negative effect of long duration talks and talking during phone charging on semen concentration. These findings justify recommendations such as avoiding using cellular phone during charging and reducing the total time of conversations. Our results warrant further large scale studies.
