Abstract
Diets could play an important role in testicular function, but studies on how adherence to the dietary patterns influences human testicular function in Asian countries are scarce. Herein, we examined the association between testosterone-related dietary patterns and testicular function among adult men in Taiwan. This cross-sectional study recruited 3283 men who attended a private medical screening program from 2009 to 2015. Testosterone-related dietary pattern was generated by the reduced rank regression (RRR) method. The association between adherence to quartile of dietary pattern scores with sex hormones (testosterone, follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH), luteinizing hormone (LH), and estradiol (E2)) and sperm quality (sperm concentration (SC), total sperm motility (TSM), progressive motility (PRM), and normal sperm morphology (NSM)) were examined by multivariable linear regression. Hemoglobin (β = 0.57, p < 0.001), hematocrit (β = 0.17, p = 0.002), triglyceride (β = −0.84, p < 0.001), HDL-cholesterol (β = 3.58, p < 0.001), total cholesterol to HDL-cholesterol ratio (β = −0.78, p < 0.001), and uric acid (β = −10.77, p < 0.001) were highly correlated with testosterone levels. Therefore, these biomarkers were used to construct a testosterone-related dietary pattern. Highest adherence (Q4) to dietary pattern scores were negatively associated with lower testosterone in the pooled analysis (β = −0.89, p = 0.037) and normal-weight men (β = −1.48, p = 0.019). Likewise, men in the Q4 of the dietary pattern had lower SC (β = −5.55, p = 0.001) and NSM (β = −2.22, p = 0.007) regardless of their nutritional status. Our study suggesting that testosterone-related dietary pattern (rich in preserved vegetables or processed meat or fish, deep-fried foods, innards organs, rice or flour products cooked in oil, and dipping sauce, but low in milk, dairy products, legumes, or beans, and dark or leafy vegetables) was associated with a poor testicular function.
Highlights
Testosterone is the most potent male sex hormone, which plays important roles in reproductive function and in male body composition and appearance.Testosterone is mostly produced by the Leydig cells (95%) of testes and it is controlled by the hypothalamic–pituitary–gonadal axis through luteinizing hormone (LH) as the key hormonal signals [1]
Innards organs, rice or flour products cooked in oil, deep-fried foods, dipping sauce, and preserved vegetables or processed meat or fish were positively correlated with dietary pattern scores
We found that triglycerides and TC/HDL-cholesterol ratio had a negative association with testosterone levels while HDL-cholesterol was positively associated with testosterone levels
Summary
Testosterone is the most potent male sex hormone, which plays important roles in reproductive function and in male body composition and appearance.Testosterone is mostly produced by the Leydig cells (95%) of testes and it is controlled by the hypothalamic–pituitary–gonadal axis through luteinizing hormone (LH) as the key hormonal signals [1]. According to the current meta-regression study reported that sperm concentration (SC) and total sperm count (TSC) declined by 50–60% in total between 1973 and 2011 among Western countries [5]. In spite of socio- and lifestyle factors such as age, obesity, smoking, alcohol consumption, and physical activity that can affect the testosterone levels and sperm quality, [6,7,8,9,10] accumulating evidence indicates that diet could play a crucial role in influencing male sex hormone and sperm quality [11,12]. Recent studies conducted in Western countries reported that adherence to a healthy prudent diet has a better testicular function (higher total sperm count or concentration and testosterone levels) [11,12]. While the unhealthy western type of diet has detrimental effects on semen quality as well as sex hormones [13]
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