Obesity makes men infertile: Study

New York: A 20-pound increase in the weight of men can increase their chances of infertility, says a new study.

Being overweight also increases the risk of many diseases and health conditions, including hypertension, Type 2 diabetes, dyslipidemia (disruption in the amount of lipids in the blood), heart disease, gallbladder disease, sleep apnea (brief pauses in breathing), respiratory problems and some cancers.

Now Markku Sallmen and other researchers at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), North Carolina, suggest that a 20-pound increase in men's weight may also increase their chances of infertility by about 10 per cent.

The data on infertility and body mass came from questionnaires that 1,468 farmers and their wives completed when they enrolled in the study, reported science portal EurekAlert.

The wives completed a family health questionnaire, which included information about the couple's reproductive history.

The men reported their weight and height on a questionnaire about their health.

The analysis was limited to couples with a pregnancy attempt during the four years before enrolment, and to women under the age of 40.

The researchers divided the couples into infertile and fertile groups.

The infertile couples were those that tried for longer than a year to conceive, and the fertile couples were those that conceived within a year.

The majority of men and women were more than 30 years old.

Twenty-eight per cent of the couples had experienced infertility.

Researchers found that obesity was an independent risk factor for infertility.