French Men Not Producing As Much Sperm, Studies Reveal

French Men Not Producing As Much Sperm, Studies Reveal

According to a new study, when it comes to sperm counts, French men are not that active as they used to be.

The number of sperm in one milliliter of the average 35-year-old Frenchman's semen fell from about 74 million to about 50 million, according to researchers who made analysis from years between 1989 and 2005. Basically, it is considered as a decrease of roughly 32 percent.

"That's certainly within the normal range, but if you think about it, if there continues to be a decrease, we would expect that we'll get into that infertile range," said Grace Centola, president of the Society for Male Reproduction and Urology in Birmingham, Alabama.

And the French aren't the only ones who should be concerned about a lack of swimmers, say researchers.

"A decline in male reproduction endpoints has been suspected for several decades and is still debated all around the world. Geographical differences have been observed between countries, and between areas inside countries," said Dr. Joëlle Le Moal, the study's lead author from the Institut de Veille Sanitaire in France.

According to a journal aboutl Human Reproduction written by Le Moal and her colleagues, global analyses have found decreases in sperm counts, as did recent studies in Israel, India, New Zealand and Tunisia.

Centola told Reuters Health that she's found similar results in a group of young sperm donors from Boston, too.

About 26,600 samples were provided by men whose female partners were later found to be infertile. That, they say, lowers the risk that the men had a fertility problem.

Over the 16-year period, the researchers analyzed there was about a 2 percent yearly decrease in the number of sperm in one milliliter of the average man's semen.

Posted by George Daniels on Wednesday December 05 2012, 2:48 AM EST. Ref: Yahoo. All trademarks acknowledged. Filed under Health. Comments and Trackbacks closed. Follow responses: RSS 2.0