Oxidative stress and antioxidant-based therapies in male infertility

nfertility is defined as the failure to achieve a clinical pregnancy after at least 12 months of regular unprotected sexual intercourse. Generally, females have often been indicated as the sole ones responsible for pregnancy failures. During the last decades, thanks to the increasing number of epidemiological studies regarding infertility, it came forth into the light that the male factor is implicated in around 50% of cases of conceiving problems. Although male infertility is considered a multifactorial disease, with pathophysiological, environmental, genetic, and lifestyle factors involved in its occurrence, reactive oxygen species-mediated oxidative stress has been associated with the pathobiological processes of male infertility. The possibility that low-molecular-weight antioxidant therapies may be useful in the treatment of male infertility has been studied in recent decades, although few clinical trials have tested the effects of single antioxidant administration or as a combination of multiple antioxidants. © 2023 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.