--- title: Fertility: Aluminum May Reduce Sperm Count, Study Shows description: The study, conducted jointly by researchers from France and the U.K., analyzed semen samples from 62 donors canonical: https://time.com/3533098/aluminium-sperm-count-study/ author: Rishi Iyengar article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-10-23T10:11:21.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-21T10:57:41.127Z article:section: Health og:title: Aluminium May Reduce Sperm Count og:description: A new study finds it may be a major contributor to male infertility. og:url: https://time.com/3533098/aluminium-sperm-count-study/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Aluminium May Reduce Sperm Count twitter:description: A new study finds it may be a major contributor to male infertility. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Aluminum May Reduce Sperm Count According to a New Study > Sponsored content. 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Health Matters is TIME's daily health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free daily newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators. by [Rishi Iyengar](https://time.com/author/rishi-iyengar/) ## Rishi Iyengar Oct 23, 2014 10:11 AM UTC by [Rishi Iyengar](https://time.com/author/rishi-iyengar/) ## Rishi Iyengar Oct 23, 2014 10:11 AM UTC Aluminum may be a major contributor to male infertility and reduced sperm counts, according to a new[ study](http://www.keele.ac.uk/pressreleases/2014/exposuretoaluminiummayimpactonmalefertility.html) released on Monday. The study, [published](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0890623814002548) in the journal _Reproductive Toxicology_ and conducted jointly by researchers at Keele University in the U.K. and the universities of Lyon and St.-Étienne in France, analyzed the sperm of 62 donors at a French clinic using fluorescence microscopy with an aluminum-specific stain. The researchers not only confirmed that semen does contain aluminum, but found that the sperm count is lowered as its aluminum content increases. Professor Christopher Exley, an expert on human exposure to aluminum and the lead researcher in the study, said that endocrine disruptors and other environmental factors are generally blamed for the decline in male fertility that has been taking place over the past several decades. “Human exposure to aluminum has increased significantly over the same time period and our observation of significant contamination of male semen by aluminum must implicate aluminum as a potential contributor to these changes in reproductive fertility,” he said. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3533098/aluminium-sperm-count-study/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3533098/aluminium-sperm-count-study/"},"headline":"Aluminum May Reduce Sperm Count According to a New Study","datePublished":"2014-10-23T10:11:21.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-21T10:57:41.127Z","description":"The study, conducted jointly by researchers from France and the U.K., analyzed semen samples from 62 donors","url":"https://time.com/3533098/aluminium-sperm-count-study/","keywords":["Research","study"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Rishi Iyengar","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/rishi-iyengar/"}],"articleSection":"Health","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/research/","name":"Research"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3533098/aluminium-sperm-count-study/","name":"Aluminum May Reduce Sperm Count According to a New Study"}}]}] ```