Male painters and decorators at risk of infertility

May 26 2008

A joint study carried out by researchers from Britain and Canada has found that exposure to certain chemicals found in paint can make men infertile.

The researchers from University of Alberta, in Canada and the Universities of Manchester and Sheffield and have linked fertility problems in men to their exposure to certain paint chemicals.

The study of 2,118 men undertaking treatment at 14 fertility clinics in the UK found that 874 were working with organic solvents, particularly glycol ethers.

They say this translates to men working with glycol solvents having a 250 percent chance of losing the ability to produce "healthy" sperms.

In the joint research project, the men were questioned about their lifestyles and occupations in order to establish possible causes of sperm motility problems.

The research revealed that painters, decorators, and those who are regularly exposed on glycol ethers, chemicals commonly used as solvents for water-based paint are two-and-a-half times more prone to fertility problems.

Glycol ether solvents are widely used in many products, including popular water-based emulsions.

A man's ability to father a baby is affected by sperm motility, the amount of movement seen in individual sperm, which serves as a part of measuring male fertility.

The researchers say glycol ether exposure was related to low motile sperm count in men attending fertility clinics and are a hazard for male fertility but other chemicals found in paint had no impact on fertility.

The study is published in Occupational and Environmental Medicine.