How to reduce DNA fragmentation in sperm?
It depends on the cause. If the damage is caused by free radicals, a change in lifestyle and diet designed to protect against oxidative stress may help reduce the level of DNA fragmentation.
Other treatments are:
- Antibiotics in co-existence of infection
- Lifestyle changes like avoid drugs, smoking and heat place occupation
- Diet like fresh foods, particularly those containing antioxidants and vitamin C & E.
- Varicocele surgery
- Testicular aspiration of sperm during ART procedure
- ART procedure to conceive
Initiative to reduce the levels of fragmentation can be assessed by undertaking a second test three months later.
Which ART Procedure Is Preferable – ICSI Or IVF?
When performing ICSI, your embryologists will try to select spermatozoa with normal morphology and rapid motility. These sperms tend to have less DNA damage. Hence ICSI is preferable to conventional IVF where sperm selection occurs naturally. Embryologists use various techniques to select the healthy sperm. Some of them are
- Selecting sperms with high progressive motility
- Intracytoplasmic morphologically selected sperm injection (IMSI) , hyaluronic acid-bound sperm selection
- The electrophoretic separation technique
- Density gradient centrifugation
- Magnetic-activated cell sorting
- Density gradient with magnetic activated cell sorting