Diabetes effects sperm quality

Dr. Con Mallidis from Queen’s University, Belfast, UK, said at the 24th annual conference of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology (Wednesday 9 July), that diabetes in men has a direct effect on fertility, a scientist told

According to the scientist’s opinion, despite the prevailing view that it had little effect on male reproductive function, the Belfast group had shown that diabetes caused DNA damage in sperm.

The increase in the numbers of diabetics diagnosed at a young age has coincided with worldwide concerns over male fertility, he told the conference. “But this is not simply a coincidence,” he said. “We have shown for the first time that diabetes adversely influences male fertility at a molecular level.”