Is Drinking Alcohol Bad for Sperm?

I’ve been largely ignoring all the alcohol-related panic headlines lately for my own personal mental health, but I did hear men are supposed to cut out drinking before trying to conceive. Is it to make sure our sperm is healthy? Or something to do with potential birth defects?

—Not giving up my microbrews just yet

There is a fairly robust literature showing that heavy alcohol consumption is associated with lower fertility. The exact mechanisms for this are unknown, but they may relate to the byproducts of ethanol consumption damaging sperm cells. Alcoholics are also more likely to report sexual dysfunction, which could contribute to lower fertility.

Many of the studies of this (here is an example) focus on extremely heavy drinkers — those who are consuming, say, a bottle of whiskey or brandy every day.

Although the exact mechanisms aren’t clear, we know enough to say that sperm quality is affected directly. So it’s not birth defects, it’s fertility, since the ability of the sperm to fertilize the egg is affected.

As with many things relating to alcohol, there is a distinction in the data between heavy and moderate or light consumption. Some data has even found an improvement in semen quality with low levels of drinking. It isn’t clear why that would be, but there is also no direct evidence in the data that light or moderate drinking would lower male fertility.

Based on the average data, then, if you’re drinking moderately (less than two drinks per day for men), there isn’t a lot of reason to worry about your sperm.