Couch Potatoes Have Less Sperm

Attention Couch Potatoes!

We already know that a sedentary lifestyle most often results in negative health outcomes including cardiovascular disease, diabetes, hypertension, obesity, high cholesterol, osteoporosis, deep vein thrombosis, vitamin D deficiency, depression, and early death.  Now, there is another good reason to GET MOVING.  In men, a sedentary lifestyle is hazardous to reproduction!

Did you know that sperm counts are reduced by half in men who watch 20 or more hours of television weekly?  And that 15 or more hours of moderate to vigorous exercise may increase sperm count?  Semen quality has been declining over the past decades and researchers wanted to know WHY.  Believing that behavior and lifestyle may be the culprit, researchers from Harvard got busy and evaluated sperm quality in 189 young, healthy men.  The two groups included sedentary men and men who exercised vigorously.

According to a research study conducted by the Harvard School of Public Health and recently published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, researchers compared sedentary men with physically active men to determine if there was a difference in their sperm.  Principal investigator Audrey Gaskins, a doctoral student at the Harvard School of Public Health, examined modifiable factors to better understand semen quality.  The results found that men who watched television more than 20 hours per week had a 44% lower sperm count than men who watched almost no television.  Men who exercised moderately to vigorously 15 or more hours per week had a 73% higher sperm count than those who exercised less than 5 hours per week [the couch potatoes].   Gaskins and her colleagues found that moderate exercise did not impact sperm quality. 

Reference:

Gaskins, A.J., Mendiola, J., Afeiche, M., Jorgenson, N., Swan, S.H., & Chavarro, J.E. (2013).  Physical activity and television watching in relation to semen quality in young men.  British Journal of Sports Medicine.  Published online, 4 Feb 2013.