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21.06.2025

Alpha-Lipoic Acid improves sperm quality

Supplementing with 600 milligrams of alpha-lipoic acid per day may increase male fertility. At the very least, it improves the quality of their sperm cells, according to a Brazilian meta-study published in the summer of 2025 in the International Brazilian Journal of Urology.

Study
Medical researchers from Pontificia Universidade Catolica do Rio Grande do Sul traced 5 previously published trials in the scientific literature in which a total of 250 infertile men aged 22-50 took 600 milligrams of alpha-lipoic acid daily for 80-90 days. In almost all cases, the men took this dose at a single time of day.

The Brazilians suspected that alpha-lipoic acid stabilizes the membranes of the mitochondria in sperm cells, allowing them to convert more nutrients into energy. This may make sperm cells more mobile and vital. In addition, alpha-lipoic acid is an antioxidant. Oxidative stress often plays a role in infertility.

Results
The amount of ejaculate was slightly higher in the men who received alpha-lipoic acid than in the men in the placebo groups, but the differences were not significant. The same was true for the concentration of sperm cells and the percentage of live sperm cells.

Supplementation with alpha-lipoic acid did reduce the percentage of abnormal sperm cells and increased sperm motility.

Click on the figures below for a larger version.

Conclusion
You would expect that supplementation with alpha-lipoic acid could improve male fertility. Whether that is actually the case, the Brazilians cannot say.

The Brazilians found two studies in which researchers had looked at the effect of supplementation on the chance of fatherhood. In those individual studies, supplementation did indeed increase the chance of pregnancy, but when the researchers aggregated the results of the studies, they could not find a statistically significant association.

Source:
Int Braz J Urol. 2025 Jul-Aug;51(4):e20240614.

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