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| POSTED 6/22/2006 |
Sperm Quality Declines With Age |
Sperm declines in quality as men age, swimming more slowly and becoming more genetically defective, according to a study recently published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The researchers from the University of California Berkeley's School of Public Health found that a man’s fertility decreases by up to 70 percent after age 40. Their study examined sperm samples from 97 men ages 22 to 80, all working at or retired from a government research laboratory. Men who smoke, have known infertility or reproductive problems, or who have undergone chemotherapy or radiation treatment for cancer were not included in the study.
They examined the sperm for motility, which includes the ability to swim quickly, and harder-to-find qualities such as DNA fragmentation index, a measure of damage that has been associated with male fertility, successful conception, and sustained pregnancy.
"Although it is well known that as women age, they are at increased risk for infertility, spontaneous abortion, and genetic and chromosomal defects among offspring, the association of male aging with these outcomes has been less well characterized," the researchers wrote in their report.
Another study, led by Dr. Elise de La Rochebrochard of the French national health institute, INSERM, found similar results. That study researched 2, 000 infertile couples and found that regardless of the female’s age, men who had reached age 40 had only a 30 percent success rate of fathering children. The findings were published in the journal Fertility & Sterility.
Date Posted: June 8, 2006
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