2023-10-22 08:33:51
Infertility now affects 1 in 6 couples of childbearing age.
In half of cases, infertility comes from men. These 25 international experts recall that men have the right to rapid and precise diagnoses and targeted treatments. However, more often than not, this care is not available. The lack of knowledge regarding the causes of male infertility and the limited availability of appropriate clinical tools most often lead to treatment in women, even though it is initially male infertility.
This consensus report advocates major measures or interventions that can improve the health of men and their children, and also reduce the burden on their female partners. Lead author Dr. Sarah Kimmins, a professor at the University of Montreal, is a world-renowned expert on male fertility and gene-environment interactions. She recalls a prerequisite:
“Lifestyle and environment play a key role in fertility.”
“The rapid decline in male fertility cannot be explained by genetics, and many studies now indicate that environmental factors are a driving force behind the “epidemic”: these include increased exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemical compounds present in our daily lives and persistent in our environment.
What environmental factors? Apart from exposure to these disruptors, there is an increase in the rate of overweight and obesity, poor diet, stress, cannabis consumption, excess alcohol and smoking or vaping. Thus, the decline in sperm quality and the increasing frequency of testicular cancer and congenital malformations of the urogenital system indicate that, globally, male reproductive health has declined in recent decades.
However, these determining lifestyle factors often remain ignored by men.
“Since sperm production takes months, men should consider adopting a healthy lifestyle well before planning a birth.”
The main recommendations of the experts:
increase public awareness through public health campaigns; expand access to diagnostics and treatments; “the clinic remains poorly equipped to correctly diagnose and treat male reproduction,” emphasize the researchers here, who note that men are currently diagnosed sterile on the basis of their family history, a physical examination, hormonal profiles and a simple semen analysis… adopt a personalized medicine approach: this approach involves a “precision” diagnosis. A new tool, HisTurn, the first genomic diagnostic offering a personalized medical approach to male infertility, is currently undergoing clinical validation. The objective of being able to provide men with a precise diagnosis which helps guide treatment and improve treatment success rates.
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