You may not be aware of it, but there is a serious sperm crisis going on. All across the world, men are showing lower levels of sperm concentration and a decrease in fertility. In one study – that was released in 2012 – French men saw a nearly 32% decrease of sperm concentration over a 17 year period between 1989 and 2005. In another study, New Zealand men saw an average annual reduction of 2.5% of sperm concentration over a twenty-year period between 1987 and 2007. Where’s the sperm going? Why is it disappearing? In a recent study, the results show that obstructive sleep apnea may be the culprit.
We already know that sleep apnea is causing men to have erectile dysfunction, but could sleep apnea also be messing with male fertility? It’s a double whammy that can put a serious damper on your sex life and your quality of life. This is why researchers in Spain wanted to get to the bottom of the issue. Using male mice as their test subjects, the scientists induced various brief periods of oxygen deprivation to mimic what goes on during an apneatic event: your body is literally being starved of oxygen.
Over the course of two months, the mice were starved of oxygen and then re-oxygenated for six hours a day. Then came the fun part: the researchers let the mice mate with female mice. After that, the researchers counted the number of pregnancies resulting from the control group of mice that were never starved of oxygen and the mice that were. The results were quite surprising – or maybe not surprising considering how damaging sleep apnea can be. According to the number of pregnancies, the mice that underwent daily hypoxic events showed significantly lower rates of fertility.
In terms of societal trends, this sperm crisis is hitting home with a lot men. According to statistics, men are waiting longer to have children. The only problem with this is that right around the time that men are ready to have children, obstructive sleep apnea starts to rear its ugly head. Researchers also note that the longer men don’t get tested and treated for sleep apnea, the harder it will become to have children. In other words, obstructive sleep apnea may have the capability to make men completely infertile if they don’t nip the sleep disorder in the bud.
At the end of the day, getting tested for obstructive sleep apnea is easy. All you have to do is get tested, receive your prescription, pick out a CPAP machine and stick to treatment. Of course, the more compliant you are to CPAP therapy, the better. Sure, you may think that CPAP is unsexy, but if you think about it, isn’t infertility much more unsexy? Also, a recent study shows that CPAP won’t interfere in your sex life at all – in fact it may even make you better in bed! As the sperm crisis rages on, it is important for each man to do his part and start undergoing CPAP treatment.
Source: Breus, Dr. Michael J. “Is Sleep Apnea Related to the ‘Sperm Crisis’?” The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 21 Dec. 2014. Web. 08 Feb. 2015.
