Bengaluru: Despite numerous awareness drives, widespread publicity about the ill-effects of smoking, even on cigarette packets, people do get hooked on to it citing stress, peer pressure and other reasons.
Reports said India has gained 35 million new smokers in the last 20 years, totaling 110 million.
Now doctors claim the apart from affecting the lungs and heart, smoking is also a major reason for infertility and inability for couples to conceive.
People take to smoking and drinking to cope with work pressure or to socialise, but over a period of time it takes a toll on their fertility.
Take the case of Reddys, a couple from the city who work in the IT industry. They were working in the same company for 10 years and got married recently.
While planning for their family, they realised they could not conceive. After visiting several experts, they found that both had problems with the functioning of their reproductive organs.
This inability to conceive even affected their personal, professional and social life. They never thought smoking would affect their sexuality. After undergoing a series of tests at Indira IVF Hospital, it was revealed that tobacco had created an imbalance in the levels of antioxidants in the wife's ovaries. It was causing hormonal imbalance and preventing fertilisation.
She had also developed many other complications including endometriosis and tubal factor infertility (tubal blockage). She realised why her periods were getting delayed by 4-5 months, instead of the normal 28 days.
Dr Vinod Kumar, Gynaecologist & IVF Specialist at Indira IVF Hospital said, “Reddy also had a very low sperm count and the sperm motility was not enough to survive through the tubes to fertilize an egg. Human sperm cells carry two tiny, highly charged proteins called protamine 1 and 2 which are in a perfectly balanced one-to-one relationship. However, sperms of the smokers carry very little protamine, which makes them highly vulnerable to DNA damage."
He also pointed out that the damages caused by tobacco also include chromosome damage and DNA fragmentation in sperm.
