Male fertility: How to improve sperm count and reproductive health?

Men who wish to improve their sperm count and boost their fertility, they must be ready to follow the advises recommended by doctors, majorly it is lifestyle changes, this would help improve reproductive health among men.

As per the researchers, in most cases, male who tend to reach the age of 40, their reproductive capacity tends to deteriorate. Males play a significant role in couple's ability to conceive, which is contrary to what has been believed for long about fertility, where the society has disproportionately blamed females when are unable to bear a child.

Now, the researchers have made claims, nearing to 50% of cases of infertility in couples can be traced to health conditions in male partner. A number of factors affect the male reproductive health and while few of these can be congenital, that is defect present from the time of birth, a number of these are acquired habits in their life.

Dr. Sweta Patel, who is senior IVF specialists at Crysta IVF-Female First Hospital, highlighted few pointers for soon to be dad, that would be useful in the long term.

1. Sedentary Behaviour

A healthy lifestyle along with regular exercise, this would help a man to be fit and active. Men should always stick to regular exercise routine. By exercising for about half an hour daily would help improve stamina, immunity, healing ability and also overall fertility.

2. Self-medication

Always ensure you receive medical advice before using any medicine. Few drugs might have an impact on your fertility. If you are taking medication, discuss the adverse effects with your doctor. To gain muscular growth and for bodybuilding, few people turn to steroid use. This is incredible very harmful to your health.

3. Unhealthy food

If you wish to improve your health, it is a good idea to give up eating fast food frequently. As per the recent study, it has been found that, males who ate processed meat had a much lower number of normal shaped sperm cells than those who ate less.

4. Obesity

Obesity does have a negative impact on man's reproductive capacity. Both underweight as well as overweight men can experience fertility issues. Weight problems not only effect not just sperm count but also physical and molecular structure of germ cells in the testes and eventually, mature sperm.

5. Unsafe sex

• One of the leading cause of infertility is sexually transmitted diseases (STD), this can be avoided. An STD can harm your reproductive health in variety of ways from pelvic inflammatory disease to obstructed fallopian tubes. So, it is best to be cautious than sorry.

Below are the 5 habits which can harm the man's reproductive health, they include

• Smoking or tobacco consumption.

Tobacco ingestion and smoking introduces in the body harmful substances, which can impair one's fertility. It impacts the number of sperms present, reduces their movement, as well as their shape. These factors definitely hamper the ability and count of sperms, that can fertilize the egg.

• Alcohol consumption

Alcohol consumption has been observed to have direct co-relation with the production of several sex hormones by impacting glands associated with reproductive system, that is, testes, hypothalamus and anterior pituitary gland. It lowers the levels of testosterone, leuteininising hormone and follicle stimulating hormone (FSH) whereas increasing oestrogen. All these factors decrease sperm production and may even lead to impotence.

• Heated Objects

The scrotum comprising testes in males in placed in such a manner wherein anatomy that it remains 2 to 3 degrees lower than the normal body temperature. This is because the production of sperm needs an environment that is cooler than the rest of the body, exposure of Scrotum to heated objects such as laptops can interfere with sperm production can lower their numbers.

• Lack of physical activity and unhealthy eating

The lack of physical activity and unhealthy eating can make the human body breeding ground for a number of health complications such as obesity, diabetes, hypertension, heart diseases and high cholesterol. These conditions have been found to further impact male fertility.

• Unsafe sex practices

Practicing unsafe sex can harbour sexually transmitted infections (STIs) in males that impact their reproductive health. STIs such as chlamydia and gonorrhoea impact the quality and movement of the sperm.