By Sola Ogundipe
There is alarm in reproductive health circles. Male infertility is on the rampage. All over the
world, reports of declining sperm quality and increasing male infertility attributable to low
sperm count and poor sperm motility and morphology are making the rounds.
Indeed it is becoming more challenging for the typical African, Asian, American or
European male to preserve his manliness and perpetuate his masculinity, particularly with
regards to fertility and vitality. A man’s sperms carry half the genetic material necessary
to make a complete human being. A woman’s egg holds the other half.
Increasingly, experts are reporting incidences of men with genetically fragile sperms. Such
sperm have fragmented DNA chains, which make them to be of low quality and less capable
of fertilisation.
Male infertility can be caused by various factors such as hormone disorders, illness, injury
to reproductive anatomy, obstruction or sexual dysfunction. These factors can temporarily
or permanently affect sperm and prevent conception. Some disorders become more
difficult to treat the longer they persist without infertility treatment. But there is hope.
The first step of any successful treatment is the proper diagnosis of the male infertility
cause.
But the same experts, who used to think the problem was only genetic in nature, are
beginning to have a rethink as studies have shown that lifestyle issues are involved.
They now know that the drastic reduction in men’s sperm counts is being driven by a deadly
combination of estrogenic (feminising) toxins in the food supply; harmful chemicals in the
environment, and poor lifestyle.
In Europe, records show that an average of 1 in 18 men has low sperm count, and the
numbers of men who are affected are rapidly increasing.
The situation is no better in America, probably worse, and although there are no specific
data, the numbers are not expected to be far off for Nigerian men. “We are seeing more
men who are having bad sperms, weak sperms and abnormal sperms, and there is a real
need to explore a suitable intervention to meet the growing proportion of men that need
help in this direction,” noted Dr. Abayomi Ajayi, a fertility treatment specialist, and
Medical Director, Nordica, Fertiliy Clinic, Lagos, Asaba and Abuja.
Lamenting the spate of declining male fertility, Ajayi, observed: “There are many things in
the environment causing what is described as oestrogenisation of men. Things such as paint,
exposure to petrol and even insecticides can affect sperm count. Men working in fuel
stations, for instance, are known to suffer from low sperm counts.”
In the view of Dr. Richardson Ajayi, Medical Director, The Bridge Clinic, Lagos , “Our
grandfathers had higher sperm count than our fathers who had higher sperm counts than
our generation. There are many theories, but a common theory is that the male of our
species is getting exposed to a lot more female hormones than ever, basically due to a lot of
xerophenes in the atmosphere. This comes from plastics used for packaging; plastics used
for computers etc. These xerophenes have female hormone oestrogen-like effects and
exposure of males to them could be deleterious.”
Clinical records show that in Nigeria, 25 percent of couples are infertile, and that half of
the causes are due to male factor issues. An assessment of hospital data from the four
leading tertiary health institutions revealed that over 90 percent of male infertility cases
are either due to low sperm counts or poor sperm quality, or a combination of both.
To illustrate the continuing decline of male fertility in the modern world, French
researchers in a brand new study published in the Human Reproduction journal, conducted
a study on French men aged 18 to 70, tracking their average sperm counts across the
country between 1989 and 2005.
Their findings showed a drop in sperm counts among all French men in this age range, of
about 1.9 percent per year on average, and by 32.3 percent on average over the course of
the 16-year period studied, while the number of normally-shaped sperm dropped by 33.4
percent during the study period.
“This constitutes a serious public health warning,” said Dr. Joelle Le Moal, an environmental
health epidemiologist and one of the researchers. “To our knowledge, this is the first study
concluding a severe and general decrease in sperm concentration and morphology at the
scale of a whole country over a substantial period.”
Le Moal said the downward trend observed in the study clearly illustrates a perpetual
decline in male fertility, which more than likely extends far outside the borders of France
and around the world. Based on the figures, average sperm concentrations dropped from
73.6 million per milliliter (mi/mL) among 35-year-old men in 1989 to 49.9 mi/mL among
the same age group in 2005, highlighting a disastrous situation. Similar findings have been
observed in the United States of America, where sperm counts have been on the decline for
more than 50 years.
Among reasons attributed to the trend is the presence of Bisphenol-A, BPA and other
plastics chemicals, pesticide and herbicide residues in conventional food, fluoride in the
water supply, radiation-emitting mobile phones and laptop computers, pharmaceutical
drugs, and many other factors are all responsible for the massive decline in male fertility
both in the U.S. and abroad. ”
It’s most likely a reflection of the fact that many environmental and lifestyle changes over
the past 50 years are inherently detrimental to sperm production,” says Professor Richard
Sharpe, a fertility research expert at the United Kingdom-based Medical Research Council,
MRC.

www.vanguardngr.com/2012/12/declining-sperm-quality-male-infertility-on-the-rampage/


so before you go blaming her,assess yourself first

Truly a cause for concern