The US scientists say that antidepressants that are taken by millions of men to alleviate depression may harm their sperm.

The researchers gave the antidepressant paroxetine to a small number of healthy men for four weeks and found that these men had far higher levels of sperm with damaged DNA.

The outcomes of the study have been reported in New Scientist magazine and they do not necessarily indicate that these men would have serious problems to become a father. But a UK fertility specialist considers them a cause for concern.

In UK, Paroxetine is sold as Paxil or Seroxat and it is considered one of the most prescribed antidepressants.

The study is the second one that points to a possible effect of the drug on sperm quality.

The researchers included 35 healthy volunteers who gave sperm sample before and after antidepressant drug treatment.

The researchers examined these “before” and “after” samples and apparently didn’t find any difference in them as the shape and movement of sperm was normal in both these samples, but they noticed a different result while testing “DNA fragmentation”

Some sperm with DNA problems are found in every sample and in this study almost 13.8% sperm were found fragmented before treatment, but after four weeks the damage rose to 30.3%

According to Dr Allan Pacey, who is a senior lecturer at the University of Sheffield, said that there were some reports that showed antidepressants harmful for sperm ,but we needed more research to help scientists evaluate the risk.

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