Research
Micronutrients & recovery
Smoking significantly increases oxidative stress, depletes antioxidants, and doubles the risk of oxidative DNA damage in sperm, leading to increased risk of birth defects and childhood cancer in offspring.
If you smoke, you are depleting your body's antioxidants and damaging your sperm DNA, which increases the risk of birth defects and childhood cancer for your children. Quitting smoking and ensuring adequate intake of fruits and vegetables (specifically vitamin C) can help mitigate this risk.
GoodSupportsHIGH confidence
Oxidative lesions in sperm DNA are increased 250% when levels of dietary ascorbate are insufficient... Smokers must eat 2-3 times more ascorbate than nonsmokers to achieve the same level of ascorbate in blood... Paternal smoking, in particular, appears to increase the risk of birth defects and childhood cancer in offspring.
Why this rating
Strong epidemiological and biochemical evidence linking smoking, oxidative stress, and sperm DNA damage.
Source
Oxidants, antioxidants, and the degenerative diseases of aging.
B N Ames et al. · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 1993
DOI 10.1073/pnas.90.17.7915
narrative_reviewCited 5,971×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
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