Supplements are “like religion” for Pachi Paris, a 29-year-old from Miami who works in finance. So when he and his wife started trying for a baby last year, it was natural for him to take $250-a-month fertility pills.
Six months later, “we found it strange that she wasn’t pregnant yet,” Paris said. “We both underwent tests and it turned out that I was the one with semen-related health problems.” This was a surprise considering Paris is juvenile, exercises and eats a vigorous diet, but he’s hardly alone.
In addition to taking fertility supplements, men are making increasingly extreme efforts to optimize their sperm health. They ice their testicles, avoid pornography, and monitor their semen quality.vitality results” as part of the so-called maximum semen trend.
While many semen boosting influencers are pushing classic wellness misinformation – no, you don’t have to replace all your underpants with organic cotton boxer shorts to stay nippy – and many biohackers are relying on unproven metrics, this trend has an unexpected advantage: a gigantic male audience is newly concerned about their reproductive health. It comes just like the researchers settling the matter that men’s well-being plays a key role in fertility, as well as pregnancy health and early child development.
“Whenever attention is focused on male fertility, I’m encouraged,” says Michael Eisenberg, a professor of urology at Stanford University. “I think he has been underrated for a long time… [and] fertility is a team sport.”
Approximately people suffer from infertility, i.e. the inability to get pregnant after a year of trying one in six people all over the world. Reproductive health has long been viewed as a women’s domain, given that women bear the physical burden of pregnancy. Although some research suggests that male factors cause est 30 percent to 50 percent cases of infertility are men not rated approximately one in four cases.
Men’s health affects whether a pregnancy will end miscarriagewhat the mother suffers from preeclampsia— a potentially life-threatening complication of pregnancy — or with which a baby is born congenital defectsalthough the overall risk is low. Sperm carry epigenetic marks that are sensitive to a man’s environment even before conception, which means lifestyle can affect sperm health.
This is where sperm measurement devices come in handy, tracking sperm count, motility (sperm’s ability to reach the egg), morphology (sperm shape and size), and DNA fragmentation. It takes about two to three months for modern sperm to fully mature, so lifestyle changes to improve sperm health can produce results quickly.
One sec some viral accounts suggest men eat plenty of beef, butter and raw milk, studies show that a diet high in saturated fats are associated with lower sperm counts, which reduces the likelihood of getting pregnant. The Mediterranean diet, luxurious in omega-3 fatty acids, antioxidants and fiber, is related to better semen quality, including sperm count, motility and morphology.
Research also shows environmental toxinssuch as endocrine-disrupting chemicals and microplastics as potential culprits of male infertility. Long-term exposure can cause oxidative stress – an imbalance in the body between antioxidants and unstable molecules called free radicals, leading to cell damage – which can reduce sperm motility and viability.
Longevity influencer Bryan Johnson, famed (or infamous, depending on your point of view) published last month about allegedly getting rid of microplastics in semen and the steps he took. Some of this is just good eco-friendly advice – like getting rid of plastic cutting boards – but for men concerned about their fertility, there are other steps that are probably more critical.