ANTIOXIDANTS AND MALE INFERTILITY

Abstract

Oxygen is essential for life as it plays vital role during respiration, yet oxygen and its metabolites are potentially cytotoxic. Such active oxygen intermediates which are called oxygen free radicals include superoxide radicals, hydrogen peroxide and hydroxyl radical (Kalara et al., 1994). A "free radical" is defined as any atom, group of atoms or molecules in a particular state with one unpaired electron occupying an outer orbit, which can cause random damage to structural proteins, enzymes and DNA (Rame, 1992). Human sperms are especially sensitive to oxygen damage. Several investigators have shown that reactive oxygen species (ROS) levels are significantly higher in idiopathic male infertility patients (Aitken et al., 1989). As many as 25% of semen samples from an unselected population of men attending an infertility clinic were hown to produce significant level of ROS (Iwaski & Gagnon, 1992 and Zini et al., 1993). There is an inverse correlation between percentage of motile spermatozoa and level of ROS detected (Iwasaki and Gagnon, 1992). Also, generation of ROS in semen is negatively associated with both the outcome of the sperm-oocyte fusion