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| Poor diet, stress, and alcoholism are factors that can cause male infertility |
The doctor told Jennifer Hennington, 'We can fix your problem and we can help you,' and then the same doctor turned to her husband, Ciaran Hennington, and said, 'But we can't do much for you. Can.'
The couple, who live in Yorkshire, northeast England, had been trying for a child for two years. They knew it would be difficult for them because Jennifer had the polycystic ovarian syndrome, a condition that can affect a woman's ability to have children.
What they didn't expect was that Ciaran also had some issues that were affecting her ability to have children.
Medical tests revealed problems that revealed Ciaran had a low sperm count. Even worse, these problems are considered more difficult, if not impossible, to treat than Jennifer's.
"I was shocked," Hannington still remembers his reaction after finding out. I was sad. I refused to accept this fact. I thought the doctors got it wrong.
He always wanted to be a father. "I felt like I had cheated on my wife."
During the years that followed, his mental health deteriorated. He started spending more time alone, staying in bed, and often drinking alcohol to calm himself down. Then he started having panic attacks.
He says that I reached the peak of my psychological crisis. It was a dark time for me.
Male infertility accounts for about half of the infertility in couples and affects 7% of men in the total population, but male infertility is much less talked about than female infertility.
One of the reasons for this is the social and cultural attitudes towards the issue or it is considered as a very bad thing for men's dignity. Due to the stigma attached to this issue, many people do not discuss it and prefer to remain silent.
Research shows that the problem is growing. Many other factors, including pollution, are affecting men's fertility and potentially having profound effects on the affected individuals and society as a whole.
The hidden crisis of infertility
During the last century, the global human population has increased enormously. Just 70 years ago there were only two and a half billion people on earth. In 2022, the world population will reach eight billion.
However, mainly due to social and economic factors, the rate of population growth has decreased drastically. Worldwide birth rates are hitting record lows. More than 50 percent of the world's population lives in countries with a fertility rate of fewer than two children per woman, resulting in shrinking populations that are not displaced.
Reasons for this decline in birth rates include positive developments such as women's greater financial independence and control over their reproductive health.
Research shows that in countries with low birth rates, many couples want to have more children than others, but for social and economic reasons, such as less cooperative family members. etc., cannot produce more children.
Research shows that a 'spectrum' (or combination) of reproductive problems is on the rise in men, including low sperm count, low testosterone levels, and increased risk of erectile dysfunction and testicular cancer. Issues like rising rates are included.
Floating cells
"Sperm cells are a wonderful phenomenon," says Sarah Martins da Silva, clinical professor of reproductive medicine and gynecologist in the UK. They are very small, they swim, and they can survive outside the body. No other cell can survive outside the body. These are extraordinarily specific kinds of abilities.
Apparently, these small changes can have a profound effect on these highly specialized cells, especially their ability to fertilize a female egg.
Important aspects of fertility are the sperm's ability to move efficiently, their shape and size (morphology), and the number of sperm in a given amount of semen (called sperm count).
When a man goes to the doctor for a reproductive health checkup, these are the aspects that are checked.
Hagai Levine, a professor of epidemiology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, says, "Usually when you have fewer than 40 million sperm per milliliter of semen, you start having problems conceiving."
Levine explains that while a high sperm count does not necessarily mean that a woman will become pregnant if she has intercourse, below the 400 per milliliter mark, the chances of pregnancy decrease rapidly.
In 2022, Levine and colleagues published a review of global trends in sperm counts.
It found that between 1973 and 2018, sperm count declined by an average of 1.2 percent per year, from 10.4 million to 4.9 million per milliliter. Since the year 2000, this rate has reached more than 2.6 percent annually.
"I don't know if the situation can get better or not."
Levine says this rapid decline in sperm potency may be due to 'epigenetic' changes, ie changes in the way genes work between generations, and environmental or lifestyle factors.
This separate study also explains what role 'epigenetics' may play in changes in sperm and male infertility.
"There are indications that this occurs after generational changes," he says.
The idea that 'epigenetic' changes can be inherited across generations is itself now controversial, but there is evidence to suggest that this may be the case.
"Perhaps this (decreasing sperm count) is an indication of mankind's poor health," says Levine. We are facing a public health crisis and we do not know if this situation will improve or not.
Research shows that male infertility is a predictor of future health problems, although the exact link to other conditions is not fully understood.
One possibility is that certain lifestyle factors may play a role in both infertility and other health problems.
"The experience of wanting a child and not being able to conceive is extraordinarily devastating, it's a huge problem," says Da Silva.
Individual lifestyle changes may not be enough to prevent a decline in semen quality. A growing body of evidence suggests that a broader, environmental threat exists: namely, toxic pollution.
A 'toxic' world
Rebecca Blanchard, a veterinary lecturer and associate professor at the University of Nottingham, is researching the effects of indoor environmental chemicals on male reproductive health in the UK.
They are using dogs as a model, meaning that the experiments and research done on these dogs would be a kind of early warning alarm system for human health.
"Dogs are part of our environment," she says. It lives in the same house and is exposed to the same chemical pollutants as our environment. We can learn from research on dogs what is happening in humans.
Rebecca's research focused on chemicals found in plastics and common household items. Some of these chemicals have been banned but are still found in the environment or in old products.
Research has shown that these chemicals can affect our hormonal systems and harm the fertility of both dogs and men.
"We found decreased sperm motility in both humans and dogs," says Blanchard.
Fragmentation of the DNA of the reproductive substance, i.e. sperm, refers to damage or breakage in the genetic material of the sperm.
Blanchard explains that as the level of fragmentation increases, so does the incidence of early-term miscarriage.
These findings are in line with other research showing the damage caused by plastics, household chemicals, the food chain, and chemicals in the air.
It affects men as well as women and even children. Black carbon, persistent chemicals, are all passed down to babies in the womb.
Climate change can also have a negative impact. Several animal studies show that sperm are particularly susceptible to the effects of elevated temperatures.
Observations have shown that heat waves cause reproductive damage in insects, and a similar effect has been observed in humans.
A 2022 study found that cumulative and prolonged increases in temperature due to global warming, or working in hot environments, negatively affect semen quality.
Poor diet, nervous tension, and alcohol
Along with these environmental factors, individual problems can also cause damage, such as poor diet, sedentary or sedentary lifestyle, nervous tension, alcohol, and drug abuse, etc.
In recent decades there has been a shift in the way people become parents later in life and while women are often reminded of their 'biological life' (childbearing age), it was believed that For men, their reproductive age is not a problem, but this perception is now changing.
A greater understanding of male infertility and new approaches to its prevention, diagnosis, and treatment, as well as awareness of the urgent need to address pollution, are growing needs.
Also, is there anything a person can do to protect or increase their sperm quality? Exercise and a healthy diet can be a good start because they are associated with better semen quality.
Blanchard recommends using organic foods and plastic products free of BPA (Bisphenol A), a chemical associated with male and female fertility. "(It's) the little things you can do," she says.
And Hannington says don't suffer in silence.
After five years of treatment and three stages of 'Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection (ICSI), a process in which a man's sperm is injected into a woman's eggs through the vagina, IVF couples with fertility problems Giving hope to
IVF is a medical procedure in which sperm are mixed with a woman's egg in a test tube or elsewhere outside the body to start the process of creating a baby and after some time it is fertilized.