Men with higher quality sperm live two to three years longer, according to a new study.
The study, published in the journal Human Reproduction, analysed data from 78,284 men in Denmark between 1965 and 2015.
The men had their semen tested due to reported couple infertility. It was found that those with a higher total motile count (TMC) – or sperm that can move or swim – were expected to live longer.
The findings mean testing semen could be used to predict and prevent future health problems, researchers say.
Dr Larke Priskorn, a senior researcher in the department of growth and reproduction at Copenhagen University Hospital, said previous research had suggested male infertility and lower semen quality could be associated with mortality – this test was to try this hypothesis.
“We calculated the men’s life expectancy according to their semen quality and found that men with the best quality could expect to live two to three years longer, on average, than men with the lowest semen quality.”
Men with a TMC of more than 120 million – which is considered healthy – lived 2.7 years longer than men with a TMC of between zero and five million.
“The lower the semen quality, the lower the life expectancy,” Dr Priskorn added. “This association was not explained by any diseases in the ten years before semen quality assessment or the men’s educational level.”
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Dr Niels Jorgensen, the chief andrologist at Copenhagen University Hospital, has cautioned that more needs to be done to understand this association.
“However, this study suggests that we can identify subgroups of men with impaired semen quality who are apparently healthy when their semen quality is assessed, but who are at increased risk of developing certain diseases later in life”.
“Fertility evaluations, which are typically conducted when the men are relatively young, would serve as an opportunity for detecting and mitigating the risks of other health problems in the longer term,” he said.
During the follow-up period, 8,600 men died, the equivalent of 11% of the total group.
The study did not look at whether poor semen quality was associated with earlier deaths from particular causes, such as cancer or heart disease – this is something Dr Jorgensen said would be studied in the future.
