The only thing newlyweds Julie and Mike Boyde wanted was a baby. The couple had already begun planning for a family and started to build a nursery in their Ambridge, Pa., home. But a painful diagnosis shattered their dream of getting pregnant. On their wedding night, they discovered that Julie was allergic to Mike’s semen when they had unprotected sex for the first time.

“Before we were always very careful and, you know, used protection, and that time we didn’t,” Julie Boyde, 26, said. “So, we figured we were married now, so if we got pregnant, we got pregnant.”

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She continues, “Pretty much right after, I knew something was not right because I was in a lot of pain. The pain that I was feeling was inside, kind of like, somebody was sticking needles up inside of me and like a burning, like really painful burning.”

It turns out she suffers from “Seminal Plasma Hypersensitivity.” And she’s not alone, 20,000 to 40,000 women may be diagnosed, as well.

“The body recognizes semen as a foreign protein just as it would recognize a peanut allergen or pollen,” said Dr. Andrew Goldstein, director of the Centers for Vulvovaginal Disorders in Annapolis, Md. “So you have swelling, you have itching, you have inflammation of the nerve endings.”

The Boydes tried a revolutionary new treatment they hoped would allow them to have a baby. And although it proved unsuccessful for them, doctors hope it can help other women who have a similar problem.

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If you think that all those burgers and steaks your significant other eats are just bad for his weight and arteries, think again. It might also be contributing to his poor sperm quality.

[from Reuters]

Men who eat lots of processed meat and full-fat dairy may have poorer quality sperm than those who eat more fruit, vegetables and low-fat diary, a small study suggests.

The study included 61 Spanish men visiting a fertility clinic. Half of the men had poor semen quality and generally had a higher intake of processed meat and high-fat dairy than did the 31men with normal sperm counts. The men with higher-quality sperm tended to consume more fruits, vegetables and skim milk.

The findings, reported in the journal Fertility and Sterility, do not prove that these foods contribute to or protect against sperm abnormalities.

But they do suggest that in addition to its numerous other health benefits, a well-balanced diet is important to fertility, lead researcher Dr. Jaime Mendiola, of Instituto Bernabeu in Alicante, Spain, told Reuters Health.

For example, Mendiola explained, the antioxidants found in fruits and vegetables may help protect sperm from damage. In a separate study, he and his colleagues found that men with normal sperm quality had a higher intake of certain antioxidants, like vitamin C and lycopene, than did men with sperm abnormalities.

Another factor may be that meat and high-fat foods may expose men to higher levels of substances known as xenobiotics — including steroids and various chemicals in the environment that have estrogen-like effects, such as certain pesticides and PCBs. Xenobiotics tend to accumulate in high-fat foods, which in turn accumulate in men with high-fat diets.

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