Virgin olive oil improves semen quality altered by hypercholesterolemic diets in rabbits

Abstract

The relationship between obesity/hypercholesterolemia and reduced male fertility has been reported clinically and in experimental models. The effect of high cholesterol intake and its impact in different tissue/organs has also been described in several models. The deleterious impact on reproductive tissues has been studied in rabbits and other species. Changes in lipid content in testis cells and epididymal cells were reported in normal or genetically reprogrammed animals. Recent work using the hypercholesterolemic rabbit (HCR) (breed: New Zealand) model previously developed to study atherosclerosis has demonstrated that increased fat in a nutritionally complete diet alters the cholesterol content and distribution in the rabbit sperm membrane. The high dietary fat level has serious consequences on sperm-specific functions that depend on membrane integrity/dynamics. At least two of the proposed pathways involved in regulating sperm capacitation and acrosomal reaction (AR) via cholesterol were compromised in the results; daily virgin olive oil supplementation together with a fat diet provided to male rabbits can restore the hypercholesterolemic (HC) response to basal level with a significant improvement of semen and sperm quality. We also concluded that the cellular events implicated must be further investigated to make greater progress not only in diagnosis and treatment but also in prevention. In these previous works, the sperm morphology of ejaculated sperm was altered. The final appearance of the sperm cell is due to complex mechanisms that take place in the seminiferous tubules. Recent work in the lab was aimed to study the Golgi apparatus / acrosome ? acroplaxome development, structures involved in the acquisition of the sperm head shape. Under HC the Golgi / acrosome development during spermiogenesis was altered promoting several sperm head and flagella implantation malformations. Interestingly, olive oil addition to normal diet avoids semen/sperm and testicular alterations in adult male rabbits.