Looks like infertile men might have more problem than just infertility. A new study believed that these men are more at risk of developing other health problems like diabetes, heart disease and substance abuse disorders than fertile men.
HealthDay News reported that the studies' lead researcher Dr. Michael Eisenberg who also happens to be the director of male reproductive medicine and surgery at Stanford University Medical School, in Palo Alto, California said they have found that men who are sterile develop several long term diseases after being evaluated as such.
What he and his team found to be interesting is that those are usually young and healthy men. Studies in the past concluded that infertile men may be at risk of developing testicular cancer, or even die. However, for the first time, the researchers are noticing that there is a greater risk of developing metabolic diseases.
Dr. Eisenberg believes that infertility will serve as a window in determining men's health.
For the study, Eisenberg and his colleagues gathered data on approximately 100,000 men from a database of insurance claims between the years 2001 and 2009, with an average age of 33. They mainly focused on general health conditions of three groups of men: those diagnosed of infertility, those who did not, and those men who had undergone vasectomy who were thought to be fertile.
They discovered that infertile men had a 48% higher chance of developing heart diseases and about 30% rate of being a diabetic, even after overcoming obesity and smoking. They were also at risk of alcohol and drug abuse. Another thing they found was the fact that the most severe form of infertility is at the highest risk of developing kidney disease and alcohol abuse.
Unfortunately, this study has not established the direct connection between infertility and the development of chronic diseases. However, the researchers believed that hormonal and/or environmental factors play a role.
