A new study conducted by researchers from Denmark has found that healthier sperm may mean longer life for men.
Healthier sperm may mean longer life.
Male infertility has become increasingly common over the past 50 years and some experts have suggested that abnormal development of male reproductive organs in the womb could be responsible. This fetal origins hypothesis has also been tied to widespread illnesses in later life like heart disease and diabetes.
To test the hypothesis that semen quality might therefore be related to illness and death, researchers from Denmark looked at men who had been referred to the Copenhagen Sperm Analysis Laboratory between 1963 and 2001, following them through the end of 2001 or until they died. They restricted their analysis to 43,277 men with viable sperm in their semen.
It was found that as the concentration of sperm in the men's semen increased, so did their lifespan. Men whose sperm concentration was 40 million per millilitre were 40% less likely to die during the course of the study than men with sperm concentrations below 10 million per millilitre.
Longevity also rose steadily with the percentage of a man's sperm that were motile, meaning they moved around normally; and the percentage of normally formed sperm. For example, men with 75% or more normal sperm had a 54% lower risk of dying than men who had less than 25% normal sperm. The researchers also found that men in the study who had fathered children lived longer than childless men, in line with previous research showing that fertile men, and women, live longer.
Childless men are known to be less healthy, poorer, and more likely to have chronic illnesses. But the increase in longevity with semen quality was seen in both men who had kids and those who didn't, suggesting that the relationship between healthy sperm and longer life was independent of these factors. Men with higher sperm quality were at lower risk of a wide variety of diseases including illnesses not traditionally associated with the fetal environment hypothesis, like cancer, respiratory problems, and digestive disease.
The researchers hypothesised that good semen quality may be a biomarker of general health associated with better survival. However, the findings shouldn't scare men whose semen quality isn't tip-top, the researchers suggest that these men should be checked out for other illnesses, especially testicular cancer.
Male infertility has become increasingly common over the past 50 years and some experts have suggested that abnormal development of male reproductive organs in the womb could be responsible. This fetal origins hypothesis has also been tied to widespread illnesses in later life like heart disease and diabetes.
To test the hypothesis that semen quality might therefore be related to illness and death, researchers from Denmark looked at men who had been referred to the Copenhagen Sperm Analysis Laboratory between 1963 and 2001, following them through the end of 2001 or until they died. They restricted their analysis to 43,277 men with viable sperm in their semen.
It was found that as the concentration of sperm in the men's semen increased, so did their lifespan. Men whose sperm concentration was 40 million per millilitre were 40% less likely to die during the course of the study than men with sperm concentrations below 10 million per millilitre.
Longevity also rose steadily with the percentage of a man's sperm that were motile, meaning they moved around normally; and the percentage of normally formed sperm. For example, men with 75% or more normal sperm had a 54% lower risk of dying than men who had less than 25% normal sperm. The researchers also found that men in the study who had fathered children lived longer than childless men, in line with previous research showing that fertile men, and women, live longer.
Childless men are known to be less healthy, poorer, and more likely to have chronic illnesses. But the increase in longevity with semen quality was seen in both men who had kids and those who didn't, suggesting that the relationship between healthy sperm and longer life was independent of these factors. Men with higher sperm quality were at lower risk of a wide variety of diseases including illnesses not traditionally associated with the fetal environment hypothesis, like cancer, respiratory problems, and digestive disease.
The researchers hypothesised that good semen quality may be a biomarker of general health associated with better survival. However, the findings shouldn't scare men whose semen quality isn't tip-top, the researchers suggest that these men should be checked out for other illnesses, especially testicular cancer.
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