Plastic Surgery for Men QT: Is a diet important for a man's fertility?

Carrying excess fat can raise the temperature around the testicles causing DNA damage to sperm which can lead to fertility problems, a new study shows. The damage could also lead to childhood cancers and fertility problems in the next generation, researchers believe. 

However, they insisted that the problems were for the most part reversible and suggested that overweight and obese men wanting to start a family should try to slim down.

Dr Ricardo Bertolla, from the urological research centre in Sao Paulo, Brazil, said: “I do think that this (effect) is reversible.

“I would recommend that these men go on a diet.”

However, he said that men who had been obese before puberty, when a number of major hormone changes linked to fertility take place in the body, could find that the effects of their condition were less easily reversible.

The study adds to growing evidence that obesity can cause DNA damage and also affect the part of the cell which drive sperm as they make their way towards the egg.

Previous studies have shown that overweight men were likely to have fewer sperm than thinner men.

Obesity is thought to affect sperm's performance in several ways, including damaging them through overheating the testicles, by disrupting sex hormones and by releasing greater numbers of “free radicals” thought to damage cells in the body.

The study looked at more than 300 men.

Obese men but not those who were overweight had significantly more damage to their DNA, they found.

Being obese increased the chance of sperm being damaged by more than 60 per cent.

However, Dr Allan Pacey, fertility expert at Sheffield University and secretary of the British Fertility Society, said that the findings should be interpreted cautiously.

He said: "I'm reasonably convinced there's a relationship between sperm quality and obesity.

"Whether that is the same as fertility is another matter - there are plenty of men out there in the community with a high body mass index (BMI) that have fathered children so the link is not absolute."

However, Dr Pacey said it was known that sperm with have a high level of damage "do less well".

The research was presented at the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) conference in Atlanta.

Obesity is calculated using the BMI, a ratio measured by dividing a person's weight in kilograms by their height in metres squared.

A BMI of between 20 and 25 is considered, 25 to 30 overweight and above 30 obese.
Point of View:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/6395038/Obese-men-wanting-children-
should-diet.html