Researchers found men with deficiencies in their semen could have a higher risk for hypertension and other health problems.
The findings reveal a number of previously-unknown correlations between men's sperm quality and other health issues, Stanford Medicine reported.
To make their findings researchers looked at over 9,000 men with fertility problems, and were able to link fertility problems with hypertension, and more generally to skin and endocrine disorders. The findings highlight the need to perform complete physical examinations on men with fertility problems, and could even lead to new treatments.
"About 15 percent of all couples have fertility issues, and in half of those cases the male partner has semen deficiencies," said the study's lead author, Michael Eisenberg, MD, assistant professor of urology and director of male reproductive medicine and surgery at Stanford. "We should be paying more attention to these millions of men. Infertility is a warning: Problems with reproduction may mean problems with overall health."
While the median age in the study participants was a relatively-young 38, but a whopping 44 percent of them had additional health problems that brought them into the clinic; many of these conditions include diseases of the circulatory system. The larger the number of defects seen in the patients was strongly correlated with the risk of having an endocrine or skin disorder.
"To the best of my knowledge, there's never been a study showing this association before," Eisenberg said. "There are a lot of men who have hypertension, so understanding that correlation is of huge interest to us."
The findings did not determine exactly what caused these strong correlations, but the researchers noted 15 percent of all genes in the human genome are connected to reproduction. There is also a chance treatments for the related diseases could cause fertility problems.
"A man's health is strongly correlated with his semen quality," Eisenberg concluded. "Given the high incidence of infertility, we need to take a broader view. As we treat men's infertility, we should also assess their overall health. That visit to a fertility clinic represents a big opportunity to improve their treatment for other conditions, which we now suspect could actually help resolve the infertility."
The findings were published Dec. 10 in the journal Fertility and Sterility.
