Ultra-Processed Food Can Affect Your Sex Hormones, Lower Sperm Count: Study

If there's one health warning that people have been hearing for times unknown, it is that processed food is good for your health. Now, a new study has found that it can be bad for your sexual health as well, especially for men. 

Believe it or not, what you eat plays a pivotal role in your sexual health. A small study published in the journal Cell Metabolism found that consuming ultra-processed food can affect male reproductive and metabolic health. 

What Did The Study Find

According to researchers, men who ate ultra-processed food according to their age, weight, height, and activity levels, gained more weight and body fat than people who ate healthy food. Eating ultra-processed food impacted their metabolic rate, which is the total amount of energy your body uses in a given time to maintain bodily functions. 

For the study, researchers recruited 43 relatively healthy men between the ages of 20 and 35. They split them into two groups: one was assigned to eat a diet high in ultra-processed foods for three weeks, and a diet of largely unprocessed foods for three weeks. The other group was asked to eat high-calorie foods instead, 500 more calories per day than required. 

While the impact was on the body, what researchers thought was shocking was the impact of ultra-processed food on male fertility. 

How Does Ultra-Processed Food Affect Male Reproductive Health

Researchers from the new study found that the eating ultra-processed food can make the sperm count in men decline, which can impact their fertility. When men ate a high-calorie, ultra-processed diet, they had lower levels of follicle-stimulating hormone or FSH, a hormone vital for sperm production. 

The study found a reduction in sperm motility when these men ate the ultra-processed diets. This could happen due to the presence of a chemical cxMINP - a type of  phthalate, also known as endocrine-disruptors that can cause significant changes in your hormonal levels. Hence, eating ultra-processed foods can cause changes to sex hormones and weight gain. 

Not just your hormonal and sexual health, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration states that ultra-processed foods may lead to several diet-related chronic diseases, including cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, and obesity. 

What Qualifies As Ultra-Processed Food 

Since ultra-processed food is not considered good for you, it is best to avoid it, but what exactly is ultra-processed food? 

Well, processed food is anything that has been altered from its original form, and ultra-processed foods, according to a 2016 study published in the British Medical Journal, are formulations that are prepared using excess addition of sugar, salt, oils, and fats to improve their flavour. 

In short, anything prepared with refined ingredients, fats, sugars, salt, and additives is considered ultra-processed. According to Healthline, ultra-processed foods include: 

• sweetened breakfast cereals
• soda
• flavoured potato chips
• white bread
• fried chicken
• flavoured candy bar
• frozen, blended coffee
• energy drinks
• flavoured granola bars 
• artificially flavoured cheese crackers.