Dietary exposure to aflatoxin in human male infertility in Benin City, Nigeria.

High dietary ingestion of aflatoxin-contaminated foods may increase male infertility risk.

This study investigated the effect of increased dietary exposure to aflatoxin on male fertility. As well as feeding adult male albino rats with aflatoxin-contaminated diets for 14 days, researchers also examined the aflatoxin content of the diets of 100 fertile and infertile adult male human subjects. The semen samples of both rats and human subjects were also collected and analyzed.

Researchers observed a higher incidence of infertility and a greater number of defective spermatozoa among men with large amounts of aflatoxin in their semen. Spermatozoal abnormalities similar to that found in infertile men were also seen in adult male rats with high semen aflatoxin levels. The results of this study show that consumption of aflatoxin-contaminated foods is associated with male infertility.