Table of Contents

1. What is fertile sperm?

If you wish to have a child with your partner, then one of your spermatozoa has to fertilise her ovum. Although this event appears quite simple, it is in fact the result of extremely complex natural mechanisms.

The quality of your sperm is one of the decisive factors in this process.

For a spermatozoon to successfully fertilise the ovum :

• There must be a volume of at least 2.0 millilitres of sperm in order for it to be able to transport a sufficient quantity of spermatozoa towards the female genital apparatus.
• The ejaculation must transport at least 20 million spermatozoa per millimetre of sperm. Although several tens of millions of spermatozoa arrive at the level of the cervical mucus, only a few thousand will make it to within range of the ovum and a sole chosen one will fertilise the oocyte.
• At least 75% of these spermatozoa must be alive.
• The spermatozoa must be good swimmers to be able to make it up the cervix, then the Fallopian tubes and finally to the oocyte. Sperm is said to be normal if more than 50% of the spermatozoa have motility.
• The spermatozoa have to be of the right shape. Although the cervical mucus does facilitate the access of spermatozoa to the tubes, it also forms a filter that eliminates weak or abnormal spermatozoa. The World Health Organisation considers sperm to be normal if more than 50% of the spermatozoa have a normally shaped head. Spermatozoa with abnormally shaped heads have trouble making it through the cervical mucus. Any abnormality in the shape of a spermatozoon's head will also reduce its ability to penetrate the surface of the ovum.
• The spermatozoa must not be agglutinated. Spermatozoidal agglutination means that the motile spermatozoa are attached to each other, either by the head, by their mid-piece, by their flagellum or a mixture of these, for example head-flagellum agglutination. If spermatozoa are agglutinated, then they will not be able to migrate towards the ovum.

2. Free radicals - Spermatozoa's enemies

Free radicals are unstable molecules that are being constantly produced in the body. They are toxic and cause cells to age more quickly. Free radicals are highly reactive chemical species and if too many of them are present in the organism they oxidise proteins, DNA and the cell membrane.

Spermatozoa, and especially their head containing the genetic material are very vulnerable to free radicals. To protect itself, the body produces primary anitoxidant molecules such as glutathione, alpha-lipoic acid, coenzyme Q10… Secondary antioxidants are present in our food.

3. What is the impact of micronutrients on sperm quality?

There are several vitamins and micronutrients that occur naturally in our food and that have been shown to have an impact on the quality and performance of sperm:

• Protection against deleterious oxygenation reactions caused by free radicals (antioxidising function)
• Improvement of sperm count, morphology and motility
• Prevention against spermatozoa agglutination

A varied and balanced diet should enable us to cover our vitamin and micronutrient needs. However, nutritional surveys show that our diets are generally deficient.

For example, only 18.7% of men receive at least 2/3 of the daily recommended intake of vitamin E and this falls to 17.4% for the recommended daily intake of vitamin C (Hercberg, S.: Les Français tels qu'ils mangent [The French and What They Eat]. Special edition of Science et Vie Alimentation, 1999, pp. 40-49).

According to a study published in 2000, sperm count is diminishing by 3% per year in Europe and by 1.5% per year in the United States. This means that whereas there were 100 million spermatozoa per millilitre in the 1950s, in the 2000s this has reached 50 million per millilitre on average.

4. Fertimax - an optimal supplement

Fertimax™ is a food supplement containing exactly the right amounts of the vitamins and micronutrients that are essential for the quality and performance of sperm.

Fertimax™ is a simple and safe way of helping you to have healthy, good quality sperm as it provides the nutritional elements that are necessary to protect and improve your sperm's performance.

• Do not leave within reach of children.
• Do not take more than the prescribed daily dose.
• Using this food supplement does not replace the balance of the variety of foods important to a healthy diet.
• Inform your doctor of any unwanted or troublesome side-effect.