Impact of Cigarette Smoking on Male Reproductive Health
Summary
Cigarette smoking remains a leading preventable cause of male reproductive dysfunction worldwide. Chronic exposure to tobacco smoke has been linked to declines in semen volume, sperm concentration, motility and morphology, and to increases in sperm DNA fragmentation. Mechanistic studies implicate oxidative stress, inflammatory signalling and disruptions of antioxidant defence systems within the testes and accessory glands. Reactive oxygen species generated by tobacco constituents can induce lipid peroxidation of sperm membranes, protein misfolding and DNA strand breaks, compromising fertilisation competence. Alterations in reproductive hormone profiles have also been observed, including changes in inhibin B and testosterone in specific populations, suggesting multifaceted endocrine disruption. Ethnic and lifestyle variations further modulate susceptibility, with some groups displaying greater impairment of semen quality or differential antioxidant responses. Emerging evidence points to epigenetic modifications in spermatozoa that may affect offspring health. Public health initiatives to reduce smoking prevalence, alongside counselling in fertility clinics, are essential to mitigate the global burden of tobacco-related male infertility.
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Impact of Cigarette Smoking on Male Reproductive Health publication trend
The graph below shows the total number of articles in impact of cigarette smoking on male reproductive health across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).
Technical terms
Oligozoospermia: Sperm concentration below normal reference values.
Asthenozoospermia: Reduced sperm motility impairing progression.
Teratozoospermia: Elevated proportion of abnormally shaped spermatozoa.
Sperm DNA fragmentation: Presence of single- or double-strand breaks in sperm nuclear DNA.
Oxidative stress: Imbalance favouring reactive oxygen species over antioxidant defences.
Heat shock proteins (HSP): Molecular chaperones upregulated in response to cellular stress.
Ferroptosis: Iron-dependent cell death driven by lipid peroxidation.
References
- Smoking Induces a Decline in Semen Quality and the Activation of Stress Response Pathways in Sperm. Antioxidants (2023).
- Effects of cigarette smoking on semen quality, reproductive hormone levels, metabolic profile, zinc and sperm DNA fragmentation in men: results from a population-based study. Frontiers in Endocrinology (2023).
- Cigarette smoking is associated with high level of ferroptosis in seminal plasma and affects semen quality. Reproductive Biology and Endocrinology (2020).
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