Health Tips – Paying attention to the male factor
A recent article in the St Louis Post-Dispatch describes some tips for improving the health of sperm.
While women’s infertility problems seem to get all the press, men’s infertility accounts for as much as 40 percent of the infertility problems among couples.
This means that more than 3 million men have sperm with no sense of direction or sperm that doesn’t know where it’s going – or no sperm.
Dr. Edward Marut, medical director of Fertility Centers of Illinois, says three factors of male infertility may be controlled by healthy living.
- Obesity – Obese men have hormonal changes that can affect fertility. This research is being done at the Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine.
- Prescription medication – Some antidepressant drugs can damage sperm. Even if the sperm fertilizes an egg, the embryo may not survive because of the damage (research from the Cornell Medical Center in New York)
- Air pollution – Ongoing research from the University of Utah’s Division of Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility is finding that the mobility of sperm in some men decreases as certain types of air pollution increases.
Dr. Marut suggests men who want to make babies maintain a healthful lifestyle: healthful eating, maintaining a good weight, no smoking, less drinking, more exercise, taking a multi-vitamin, reducing caffeine – the whole regimen.