Male Fertility Affected By Changes In Temperature
I've been reading a lot lately about how men's fertility can be affected by environmental and lifestyle factors. Here's an article about how heated car seats and laptops may not be such a good idea for men who are trying to conceive:From the article:
Scientists warn that the seats could damage sperm production by raising men's temperature to unhealthy levels.
The study follows warnings that keeping a mobile phone in a trouser pocket for too long or extensive use of a laptop computer can also affect fertility.
An optimal temperature of between 35 and 36 °C is needed to produce healthy sperm.
Even small temperature changes can significantly affect sperm counts, which is why the testes are outside the body, which has an average temperature of 37 °C.
Scientists tested the effect of heated car seats on 30 healthy men.
The volunteers were fitted with temperature sensitive sensors and asked to sit on different types of car seats for 90 minutes.
Reporting their findings in New Scientist, the team say that on unheated seats the average temperature of the scrotum was 36.7 °C.
But on the heated car seats one man's temperature rose to 39.7 °C, while the average was 37.3 °C.
Andreas Jung of the University of Giessen in Germany, who led the study, said that the average rise in temperature could be enough to damage sperm production.
from:
www.telegraph.co.uk