Fat men run the risk of infertility reports The Times, London.
'Men who are overweight or obese produce dramatically lower numbers of strong swimming sperm than men of normal weight. Sperm they do produce are much more likely to carry genetic faults that impair their ability to fertilise an egg,' The Times reported on Friday.
The study was conducted by Reproductive Biology Associates, a fertility clinic in Atlanta, and presented at the American Society for Reproductive Medicine conference in Texas.
The clinic's findings, The Times reported, 'suggest that paternal obesity, which in the past has barely been considered as a cause of infertility, is often a major factor in a couple's inability to have children. It has long been known that obesity can seriously affect a woman's fertility.'
The Atlanta researchers took semen samples from 52 men and analysed them in conjunction with their Body Mass Index. Dividing a person's weight by the square of her/his height gets the BMI. A BMI greater than 25 is overweight; over 30 equals obesity.
'Among men with a body mass index of less than 25, the average number of normal, healthy sperm cells in each ejaculation was 18.6 million,' The Times reported. 'In overweight men this fell to 3.6 million. Obese men had a healthy sperm count of just 700,000.'
The Atlanta clinic felt this 'left overweight men on the cusp of infertility.'
The researchers plan to conduct further studies to find if reducing weight improves sperm levels.
The Atlanta team is not sure about the exact co-relation between obesity and low sperm levels. They do know that obesity 'changes patterns of hormone production in both men and women, and this could be affecting sperm quality and quantity. ' They also believe that increased 'body fat in the groin area warms the testes, affecting fertility.'