Do our sperm decay?
This is the dominant assertion in andrology right now, but I was brought up to question, falsify, every hypothesis and right now I don’t accept it.
Do you have more reliable studies?
The ones that are there were not designed to determine the quantity of our sperm and the only one that was, the Dane, showed that their number and quality have not changed.
Well that’s a relief, doctor.
But here and now I have to protest because many more funds are allocated to researching the female reproductive system and its diseases than the male. It’s sexist.
Shouldn’t it be because there are more chances to make money with them than with them?
In any case, male reproductive health is not a priority for public and private investment and it is a big mistake, because it would give us a lot of relevant information about the health of all.
What does semen say about our health?
A lot. And of our longevity: I have verified that the quality of semen is an indicator of how many years you will live and of cardiovascular health.
How should we keep semen healthy?
We know that heat harms it, like sitting in a sauna for too long; and tight clothes too. If you want to be a father, don’t wear tight jeans or briefs, even if it’s fashionable to make a mark.
Because?
Think your testicles rise or hang to get closer to or away from your body heat and keep your temperature stable – don’t boycott this wonder. And remember: tobacco fragments sperm DNA; also ultra-processed food.
Is ejaculating good exercise?
It is a good exercise to renew semen, but the scientific article that claimed that ejaculating often prevented prostate cancer was not reliable.
Can you ejaculate too much?
If he wants to be fertile, he will be less so if he ejaculates several times a day; because the sperm generation process cannot maintain a frequency that is too high.
If you lose seminal quality over the years, can it be recovered somehow?
There is no miracle pill to regenerate semen. I’m sorry.
And for whom he cannot beget?
At the moment we are already making semen for some animals in the laboratory and soon for humans. Because today there are scientists reprogramming cells to turn them into stem cells with which we will soon be able to generate human sperm.
Do men have menopause?
No, but as we age male fertility gradually declines.
And if the couple is younger?
Indeed, a younger partner can compensate, in part, for this degradation of semen with age; but the risk of genetic disorders in the offspring remains high and growing.
So why are there more men late parents than women?
Because society still believes that men age less. And it’s false. Women run out of eggs one day, but in men the semen slowly degrades. Can I do sociology?
Come in! We love it!
Man compensates for the loss of attractiveness as he ages with money and power, so he becomes more ambitious as he also gets older. And, culturally, for masculinity we celebrate an old man having children. Remember Charles Chaplin’s eleven children with four wives?
I don’t know if today we see him as enviable.
He had his eleventh child at the age of 72 and this is only possible for a man with a young partner.
Will having laboratory human semen solve the demographic crisis?
For the time being, we will replace the children we don’t have with immigration and then the birth rate will decrease in immigrant countries as well. This cannot be stopped with more or less semen but by rethinking the economy, education, values…
And if we don’t rethink it?
We will have more and more people who want to have children but at too late an age, which is to have a fixed job, housing and money to raise the children.
Won’t the reproductive technology that will allow aging parents make up for it?
Everything has a limit: including science. To make this compensation possible a prosperous economy is needed and today it is based on a pyramid with many working for an elderly peak. And there are more and more of them living with fewer and fewer working.
What do you think will happen?
That you and I will have to work velis nolis until we are 80.
