A 2008 study found that taking a widely used antidepressant causes genetic damage to sperm, resulting in reduced fertility in men. Dr. Peter Schlegel of Cornell Medical Center in New York recruited 35 physically healthy men for a 5-week experiment. He wanted to determine exactly what the impact on men’s health was of taking the compound paroxetine – the active ingredient in several particularly popular and affordable medications often prescribed for depressive conditions. The volunteers gave semen samples before and after starting the 5-week regimen. The first samples were characterized as very good – certain disorders were observed in them with a standard frequency, but morphologically and genetically, the quality of the spermatozoa was more than satisfactory. In the second samples, collected after the end of the 5-week treatment course, the morphology and motility of the male germ cells were normal. However, in a thorough analysis, the scientists found three times more sperm with genetic defects and mutations. The most common was DNA fragmentation, which is the breaking or breaking of the double strand of DNA. NEWS_MORE_BOX Similar spermatozoa with damaged DNA are found among all men – among the hundreds of millions of cells, it is normal for some of them to be of poorer quality. The problem is that after only 5 weeks of paroxetine treatment, the observed damaged sperm accounted for about 30.3% of all available germ cells in the volunteers’ semen. The high frequency of DNA fragmentation in seminal fluid is one of the main reasons for failed attempts at in-vitro procedures. In the 9 years since the study was conducted to date, a number of other scientists have confirmed the effect and believe that paroxetine and many other drugs can affect fertility much more strongly than assumed. The research itself can be found in the September 24, 2008 issue of New Scientist.