Diabetes ‘decreases male fertility’
(wz) New research finds condition damages the sperm’s DNA.
Experts have suspected as much for years and now it has been confirmed: diabetes is a threat to male fertility, according to new research by Queen’s University Belfast.
The study found the impact was strongest in people with type 1 diabetes, which is usually present from childhood, but was also apparent in men who developed the condition later.
Fertility experts at the university have been studying sperm samples from 60 diabetic men for several years, comparing them with thousands of other men without the condition. The latest study, involving examination of the semen of eight men with diabetes, found that it had disrupted the DNA in their sperm.
The researchers concluded that high blood sugar levels meant men with the condition “have a significant decrease in their ability to repair sperm DNA, and once this is damaged it cannot be restored”.
Neil McClure, professor of obstetrics and gynaecology at the university, said the possibility of a link between the condition and reduced fertility had been mooted before but adequate research had never been carried out.
“Male fertility has always been looked at in diabetics in a haphazard way,” he said. “Under a light microscope there’s no difference, but in DNA analysis, you see a lot more damage. Diabetes affects virtually every part of the body. It sticks little sugar molecules onto everything, so when we looked at the sperm we found a lot of these molecules. The whole way the DNA functions in the diabetic man is upset.” more…
From: »The Times«