If the soda tax won’t get men to cut back on cola intake, the results of a recent study published in the American Journal of Epidemiology just might. According to researchers, there may be a direct effect between heavy consumption of caffeinated cola and reduced sperm count.

Over the course of four years, researchers in Denmark looked at semen samples from over 2500 young men and compared to the levels of cola and caffeine that the men were consuming each week.

Neither moderate nor low consumption of caffeine and cola showed a correlation to sperm count or semen quality.

Meanwhile, those consuming over 7 liters of cola/week and/or 800mg of caffeine/day demonstrated “reduced sperm concentration and total sperm count, although only significant for cola.”

State the researchers on the study:

Therefore, the authors cannot exclude the possibility of a threshold above which cola, and possibly caffeine, negatively affects semen quality. Alternatively, the less healthy lifestyle of these men may explain these findings.

Caffeine Intake and Semen Quality in a Population of 2,554 Young Danish Men [AJE]

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