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Heavy Metal Level in Human Semen with Different Fertility: a Meta-Analysis

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Abstract

There are conflicting reports on the heavy metal levels in human semen with different fertilities. The purpose of this analysis is to merge and analyze the differences of heavy metal lead (Pb), cadmium (Cd), zinc (Zn), and copper (Cu) levels in male semen with normal and low fertilities. All documents in both Chinese and English were collected from the PubMed, Web of Science, and Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) database from inception date to February 19, 2016. We have used RevMan software (version 5.2) for the meta-analysis and Stata software (version 12.0) for the meta-regression and sensitivity analyses. A total of 20 literatures were included in the study. The results of the meta-analysis indicate a significant difference between fertility with three metal ions (Pb, Cd, Zn) while no significant difference with copper, detailed as follows: (i) 10 studies on the lead concentrations with a standardized mean difference (SMD) = 2.07, 95 %CI (0.97, 3.17), P < 0.01; (ii) 13 studies on the cadmium concentrations with an SMD = 0.75, 95 %CI (0.44, 1.07), P < 0.01; (iii) 8 studies on the concentrations of zinc with an SMD = −0.61, 95 %CI (−1.08, −0.14), P < 0.01; and (iv) 9 studies on the copper concentrations with an SMD = 0.42, 95 %CI (−0.29, 1.13), P = 0.247. The results indicate that the men with low fertility have higher semen Pb and Cd levels and lower semen Zn levels; more studies are needed to indicate the association of the semen copper level with fertility.

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Acknowledgments

The authors thank all members in Professor CH. Wang’s laboratory at Wuhan University for their valuable assistances and comments of the manuscript. The project was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (no. 81172628) and the National Science Foundation for Postdoctoral Scientists of China (no. 2015M582279).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Toxicology, School of Public Health, Wuhan University, DongHu Road 115, Wuhan, 430071, People’s Republic of China

    Jiantao Sun, Guangxia Yu, Yucheng Zhang, Xi Liu, Chuang Du, Lu Wang, Zhen Li & Chunhong Wang

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  1. Jiantao Sun
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  2. Guangxia Yu
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  3. Yucheng Zhang
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  4. Xi Liu
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  5. Chuang Du
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  7. Zhen Li
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  8. Chunhong Wang
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Correspondence to Chunhong Wang.

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Jiantao Sun and Guangxia Yu contributed equally of this study and share first authorship

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Sun, J., Yu, G., Zhang, Y. et al. Heavy Metal Level in Human Semen with Different Fertility: a Meta-Analysis. Biol Trace Elem Res 176, 27–36 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12011-016-0804-2

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