Contents:
- Medical Video: Improving Fertility in Men with Poor Sperm Count | UCLA Urology
- The importance of men to pay attention to the fertile period
- Sperm quality has decreased after childbearing age
- Bad habits can reduce the quality of your sperm
- Improve sperm quality with a healthy lifestyle
Medical Video: Improving Fertility in Men with Poor Sperm Count | UCLA Urology
Many reasons were expressed by parents so that women should not marry at a mature age. One of them is due to fertility problems, the quality of the egg if it gets older, decreases. So what about men? Will male age affect sperm quality?
The importance of men to pay attention to the fertile period
Not only women who should pay attention to their fertile period, men also must know it. In lay circles, most people only consider fertility problems as a matter of women, even though men also have fertile periods that will determine the success or failure of the pregnancy process.
There are a number of things that can affect the quality of sperm in a person's body, such as age and lifestyle. That is why, the quality of sperm in a man's body is not always the same from time to time. But broadly speaking, the best sperm quality can be obtained in the range of fertile age, which is between 25-40 years.
This quality can be measured using a spermiogram (sperm analysis test). According to the standards of the World Health Organization, there are three parameters that can be used to measure sperm quality, namely, number (concentration), speed (motility), and form (morphology).
As long as the person has excellent body health and sexual health, the spermiogram does not show a difference in the sperm quality of men aged 20, 30, and 40 years.
Sperm quality has decreased after childbearing age
After going beyond the fertile age range, then a number of changes occur in sperm quality. Based on a study conducted at Otago University, New Zealand, in 2014, sperm quality will decrease with age. In addition to reduced sperm volume, sperm speed also decreased. As a result, sperm are more difficult to reach the egg to carry out the process of fertilization.
Research also shows a decrease in quality in terms of the shape (morphology) of sperm. Changes in terms of this form are important to note because it indicates the genetic content contained in sperm. The existence of significant sperm deviation can complicate conception or cause problems with chromosomal abnormalities, one of which is able to increase the risk of Down syndrome in the fetus resulting from fertilization.
Bad habits can reduce the quality of your sperm
One thing that should not be forgotten, age is not the only thing that can affect sperm quality. The overall diet and lifestyle have a greater contribution in determining quality.
Unhealthy eating patterns, for example, too much fat and sugar intake, can increase a person's risk of obesity and diabetes. Both types of health disorders are able to cause a decrease in quality.
Not only that, types of serious illnesses such as tuberculosis, typhoid, and hepatitis, as well as bad habits such as smoking, drug abuse, and alcoholism, can also result in a decrease in sperm quality. Cigarettes especially need to be avoided because the toxins contained in nicotine can damage the head of sperm. As a result, sperm will experience difficulty in being able to penetrate the egg cell wall.
Improve sperm quality with a healthy lifestyle
The good news, the quality of sperm that begins to decline can be improved by starting to implement a healthy lifestyle and doing a number of good habits. If you are able to do it, it is not impossible that the quality of sperm of men who are at the final threshold of fertile age is even superior to those who are still in the middle of the fertile age range.
What are the good habits that need to be adopted to improve quality? No other than eating types of foods that contain balanced nutrition, increase the consumption of foods that are rich in antioxidants (folic acid, vitamin C, zinc, vitamin E, etc.), and exercise regularly to maintain an ideal body weight.
The habit of soaking in hot water or wearing tight pants also needs to be reduced to avoid increasing the temperature of the testicles. Because the increase in temperature in the testis can risk reducing sperm count.
Not only that, sexual health conditions also need to be maintained. That is, do not arbitrarily change partners and do intimate relationships regularly so that the sperm production cycle is well maintained. So, invite your partner to maintain a healthy lifestyle so that the quality of sperm is maintained.
