According to a new study, exposure to organochlorine pesticides such as DDT by adolescents might affect their sperm production and result in defective sperm and consequently fertility problems.

Lead author Melissa Perry, professor at George Washington University said, "Exposure to these chemicals in adolescence may lead to reproductive problems years later."

Perry led a team of researchers that studied sperm and blood samples collected from 90 men living on an island on the Faroe Islands in the north Atlantic. The residents of the islandconsumes a seafood-rich diet, including pilot whale meat and blubber that leads to a high exposure to organochlorine pollutantsincluding polychlorinated biphenyls or PCBs and the main metabolite of the insecticide DDT.

The team studied the amount of organochlorine pesticides in the blood samples and used a sperm imaging method devised by Perry's lab to detect sperm disomy. Sperm disomy is a condition in which the sperms have an unusual number of chromosomes. The tam found that the participants with higher levels of the DDT metabolite and PCBshad significantly higher rates of sperm disomy. Experts have said that pesticides such as DDT were heavily used in the1960s but are now banned in many countries but are still in use in some tropical countries and chemicals still linger in the soil and water in many countries.

Experts said that people get exposure to the pollutants by eating a diet with lots of meat, dairy and fatty fish.