Luigi Montano, president of this institution, announced in statements published Monday by the Affaritaliani news website the conclusions of a research within the EcoFoodFertility project, which show that only the fact of living in areas with high environmental impact affects reproduction.

Ecological deterioration has an impact on low fertility, regardless of lifestyle and the effect of pollutants such as pesticides, polycyclomatic hydrocarbons, polychlorinated biphenyls, dioxins and heavy metals, among others.

Using an integrated human biomonitoring system, male semen and the blood and urine of young people homogeneous in age and body mass, non-smokers and non-habitual drinkers, living in contaminated areas of Campania, Brescia-Caffaro, Valle del Sacco, Taranto, Modena and Vicenza were analyzed, Montano said.

This research strongly corroborated the results of an international study from 1941 to 2011, according to which in Western countries the number of spermatozoa of fertile males was reduced from 113,000 to 41,000 per milliliter, the source explained.

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