Semen quality and sex hormones among organic and traditional Danish farmers

Objectives-To confirm or refute the hypothesis that organic farmers have hi gher sperm concentrations than traditional farmers. Methods-Traditional and organic farmers were selected randomly from central registers, and 171 traditional farmers and 85 organic farmers delivered on e semen sample before the start of the spraying season. The participation r ate was 28.8% among traditional farmers and 42.9% among organic farmers. Results-The median sperm concentration for traditional and organic farmers was 58 million/ml and 64 million/ml, respectively. After adjustment for sev eral confounders, sperm concentration, total count, proportion of non-vital spermatozoa, sperm chromatin structure, and motility variables did not dif fer significantly between the two groups. The traditional farmers had a sig nificantly lower proportion of normal spermatozoa, but this result was not confirmed in a second sample Organic farmers had slightly higher inhibin B concentration and testosterone/sex hormone binding globulin ratio. Conclusion-Despite slight differences in concentrations of reproductive hor mones, no significant differences in conventional measures of semen quality were found between organic and traditional farmers.