Men should wear boxer shorts not briefs if they want to improve their chances of fathering a child, researchers have found.Sperm quality improved if they also slept naked.
Tag: sperm quality
Fertility Issues Caused By Men’s Underwear Divide Scientific Community
Should wearing boxers or briefs be a concern for men? A research published on Fertil Steril in 2012 based on a joint study conducted by Université de Toulouse and University Paul Sabatier in France revealed that heat in men’s nether regions had a huge influence on sperm quality.
Even a Few Drinks a Week Lower Sperm Quality, Study Finds
It goes without saying that drinking in excess is bad for your health, but it might also hurt your chances of reproducing. In a survey of men between the ages of 18 and 28, researchers reported Thursday in the British Medical Journal, as few as five drinks a week were found to affect sperm quality.
Stress Degrades Sperm and Fertility, Study Finds
Psychological stress may degrade sperm quality and sperm fertility, according to a study published today in the journal Fertility and Sterility
Researchers Develop Sperm-Sorting Design That May Aid Couples Undergoing In Vitro Fertilization
According to the World Health Organization, approximately 70 million couples experience infertility worldwide. Current data suggests that nearly one third of infertility disorders are due to poor sperm quality. For couples undergoing in vitro fertilization, certain sperm characteristics, such as motility and stamina, are crucial when sorting and selecting sperm. However, selecting the fittest sperm can be a challenge.
Sperm quality rises in winter
Human semen quality may rise and fall in seasonal variation, with the best quality being produced in the winter and spring.
Research suggests that semen produced during that time has a greater concentration of sperm of which a higher percentage are fast moving and appear normal when looked at under a microscope.
Researchers took semen samples from 6,477 men who had been referred with their partner to a fertility clinic in Israel. Men who had sperm counts in the normal range averaged 71 million sperm per millilitre in spring, which fell to a low of 64 million in autumn. Although total sperm motility was greatest during the summer months, the percentage of fast-moving sperm, thought to increase the chances of fertilisation, was highest in winter.
In men with lower than normal sperm concentration seasonal variation was less marked. The highest percentage of sperm with normal morphology was in the spring, and a slight trend towards greater motility was also observed during this time. However neither the concentration of sperm or the percentage of fast-moving sperm altered significantly between seasons. Read full article.
Stress and anxiety linked to sperm quality
(Reuters Health) – A man’s ability to produce sperm may depend on his ability to handle stress, according to a new study from Italy.
Researchers found that men with higher levels of both short- and long-term stress and anxiety ejaculated less semen and had lower sperm concentration and counts. Men with the highest anxiety levels were also more likely to have sperm that were deformed or less mobile.
But one fertility researcher not involved in the new work said it’s hard to know how the results apply to the general population because the research included men who were already seeking treatment at a fertility clinic.
“Do you become stressed from becoming infertile or is stress causing infertility?” asked Tina Jensen from Rigshospitalet in Copenhagen, who has studied the effects of environmental factors on sperm quality.
Previous research has found that men going through fertility treatment or evaluation have higher stress levels than the average person, and some studies have also shown links between stress and sperm quality, according to the Italian researchers, led by Elisa Vellani of the European Hospital in Rome. Read full article.
Seminal Research: New Study Says TV Watching Lowers Sperm Count
For the past 20 years scientists have been fretting over the decline of sperm counts in the West. The most recent alarm came late last year, when a study found that sperm counts had fallen in French men from an average in 1989 of 73.6 million sperm per milliliter of semen in a 35-year-old man to 49.9 million per milliliter in 2005.
While nowhere close to threatening our fertility as a species—that number would need to drop below 15 million per milliliter—it is not a comforting trend given that lower sperm counts make it harder to father children. But the cause has been unknown. Did the lower sperm counts stem from high-fat diets, being overweight, or trace amounts of chemicals in the environment and their effect on the body’s hormones? The search for a smoking gun produced a lot of intense speculation but little firm evidence.
Now, a deceptively simple study published in theBritish Journal of Sports Medicine has found a new and surprising culprit: television.
“Men who watched more than 20 hours of TV every week had 44 percent lower sperm counts compared to those who watched almost no TV,” says lead author Audrey Gaskins, a doctoral candidate at Harvard’s School of Public Health. “And then men who exercised for 15 hours or more per week at moderate to vigorous levels had 73 percent higher sperm counts than those who exercised less than five hours per week.” Read full article.
Too much TV could damage sperm production
Semen quality is a much-discussed subject among scientists these days. Data suggests sperm concentration has been declining in Western countries over the past couple of decades – and reasons for the decline are debatable.
The lead author of a new study on the subject, Audrey Gaskins, has been studying the effects of diet and exercise on semen for several years as a doctoral candidate at the Harvard School of Public Health. Her latest research shows a lack of physical activity – and too much time in front of the television – may impact sperm count and concentration.
Previous studies have shown a link between physical activity and decreased levels of oxidative stress, Gaskins says. “Oxidative stress” is stress placed on the body as it tries to get rid of free radicals or repair the damage caused by them. Exercise may protect certain male cells from oxidative damage, Gaskins says, leading to increased sperm concentration. Read full article.
ASRM: Dietary Glycemic Load Linked to Sperm Concentration
(HealthDay News) Increased carbohydrate intake and dietary glycemic load and increased intake of full-fat dairy products are associated with worse semen quality, according to two studies presented at the annual meeting of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, held from Oct. 20 to 24 in San Diego.
Jorge E. Chavarro, M.D., Sc.D., from the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, and colleagues examined the association between carbohydrate intake and semen quality using data from 189 men, aged 18 to 22 years, recruited for the Rochester Young Men’s Study in 2009 to 2010. The researchers found that there was a suggestion of an inverse association for total carbohydrate intake with sperm concentration (P = 0.08 for trend). Dietary glycemic load correlated with lower sperm concentration (P for trend = 0.04). Sperm motility and morphology were unrelated to carbohydrate intake or glycemic load. Read full article.