Office exertion, BP may undermine men's fertility

Senior author Germaine Buck Louis of NIH's Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development said that nearly 15 percent of U.S. couples do not become pregnant in their first year of trying, adding that male infertility plays a significant role, and our aim is to explore the influence of environmental factors and health status on semen quality.

Semen quality is a measure of a man's ability to achieve fertilization and is based on the number, shape, and movement ability of sperm, as well as other factors.

Of the men who reported receiving a physician's diagnosis of high blood pressure, diabetes, or high cholesterol, the researchers found that only those with high blood pressure had a lower percentage of normally shaped sperm, compared to men who reported no high blood pressure.

Michael L. Eisenberg added that as men are having children later in life, the importance of diseases people once thought as separate from fertility must be re-explored. Future investigations need to examine whether it's the high blood pressure itself or the treatment that is driving these trends.

To that end, the researchers observed that the more medications a man reported taking, the higher his risk of a low sperm count. Of the men who reported taking two or more medications, 15 percent had sperm counts below 39 million.

NIH's Buck Louis said that the good news is that these factors, if they are confirmed to have negative effects on male fertility, can potentially be modified by medical care or changing job-related behaviors. They look forward to additional research in this area.

The results are published online in Fertility and Sterility.