A new study by Michael Eisenberg, director of male reproductive medicine and surgery at the Stanford University School of Medicine in California, revealed that the quality of the semen can be linked to many seemingly unrelated health conditions. More than 9,000 men with fertility issues and problems were studied and they found out that there is a correlation between the number of various defects in a man's semen and the likelihood of having many health problems.
Furthermore, the study links that poor semen quality to a higher change of having various health conditions including hypertension, hormonal, circulatory and skin conditions among others. The findings were published online on December 1.
Dr. Michael Eisenberg said, "We used a well-known marker for overall health. The less healthy men were, the lower sperm quality overall." Although physicians know that smoking and obesity are predisposing factors to make the semen quality worse, there was little knowledge known on the link between health conditions and fertility.
In the study, the researchers calculated the overall score on health condition based from medical records of 9,387 men who consulted on infertility conditions at Stanford from 1994 to 2011.
CharlsonComorbidigy Index was used to measure the men's health which is basically a scale that takes into consideration the conditions he is living with and has predictions of his likelihood of death in the next 10 years.
Results have shown that men whose overall health scores were worse were the ones with lower quality of their semen. Around 31% of men in the healthy group have at least one abnormality in their semen compared to the 36% of the men who were in the worst health. Also, 14% of men in the best healthy group had two or more semen problems compared to 36% of the men in worst health.
He added that men who are living with health conditions such as hormone, circulatory, urinary and skin conditions are the ones with semen problems and low quality of semen. Among circulatory problems are high blood pressure, heart problems and vascular abnormalities.
