Men who are infertile because of defects in their semen are also at much greater risk of dying young, a new study has revealed.
Researchers
found men with two or more abnormalities in their semen were more than
twice as likely to die over an eight year period as men who had normal
semen.
The
study’s lead author Dr Michael Eisenberg, assistant professor of
urology at Stanford University, said smoking and diabetes - either of
which doubles mortality risk - both get a lot of attention.
However he added: ‘But here we’re seeing the same doubled risk with male infertility, which is relatively understudied.’
Men with abnormal sperm are much more likely to die young than those with normal semen, research shows
Infertility is a widespread medical complaint in developed countries, with about one in seven couples affected at some point.
But
Dr Eisenberg said his is only the third study worldwide to address the
question of a connection between male infertility and mortality.
Dr
Eisenberg and his colleagues, whose findings were published online by
the journal Human Reproduction, examined records of almost 12,000 men
aged 20 to 50 who had visited one of two centres to be evaluated for
possible infertility between 1994 and 2011.
Dr Eisenberg said: ‘We were able to determine with better than 90 per cent accuracy who died during that follow-up time.
‘There
was an inverse relationship. In the years following their evaluation,
men with poor semen quality had more than double the mortality rate of
those who didn’t.’
While
no single semen abnormality in itself predicted mortality, men with two
or more such abnormalities had more than double the risk of death over
the eight year period following their initial fertility examination
compared with those with no semen abnormalities.
The greater the number of abnormalities, the higher the mortality rate, the study found.
Being infertile increases a man's risk of premature death as much as smoking
Dr Eisenberg said this reflects, first and foremost, their relative youth with an average age of 36.6 years.
However,
he said it also reflects the fact that men who get evaluated for
infertility tend to have a higher than average socio-economic status and
have accordingly better diets, education and access to health care.
And Dr Eisenberg said men who are concerned about infertility are men who want to have children.
He
added: ‘If you’re trying to have a child, you’re probably reasonably
healthy at the moment and in mental shape to be planning for your
future.’
He
said, within this select group, the difference in death rates between
those who had semen abnormalities and those who didn’t was statistically
significant.
However,
those with two or more semen abnormalities were more than twice as
likely to die during the follow-up period as those without any.
Dr
Eisenberg said: ‘It’s plausible that, even though we didn’t detect it,
infertility may be caused by pre-existing general health problems.
‘But
we controlled for this factor as best we could, and while that did
attenuate the measured risk somewhat, there seems to be something else
going on.
‘Could
it be genetic, developmental or hormonal factors? Or could it be that
something about the experience of having and raising kids - even though
you may sometimes feel like they’re killing you - actually lowers
mortality?’
Now Dr Eisenberg and his colleagues are trying to figure out why this is happening.
He added: ‘Is their blood pressure rising? What about their blood sugar, or other measures?
‘We are starting to do prospective data collections now, through a collaboration involving several centres.’DAILYMAIL