Winter is the perfect time of the year to enjoy the cosiness of your home and to snuggle up on your couch watching your favourite shows on TV. This is fun and a good thing, provided you don’t overdo it. Not only might your six-pack suffer and disappear in no time at all, but also your general fitness will decrease, if you spent too much time on this kind of activity.
Researchers of the renowned Havard University / USA now wondered whether too much inactivity might impact not only general wellness, but also reproductive fitness. They conducted a study with 189 young men, aged 18–22 years, relating their physical activity level and TV watching to their semen quality1. Read more…
The scientists cooperating with Jorge Chavarro, who has been interested in the influence of lifestyle factors on fertility for many years, did not find any effects of physical activity on sperm motility and morphology. However, sperm concentration and total sperm count were directly related to physical activity: men in the highest quartile of moderate-to-vigorous activity (≥15 h/week) had 73% higher sperm concentration than men in the lowest quartile. Those with moderate activity (20 h/week) had 44% lower sperm concentration than men in the lowest quartile (0 h/week).
So for those of you who want to support general fitness as well as reproductive wellness, it is time to get off your cosy couch and get active… (sorry, can’t continue writing this article, have to go to the gym urgently – I’m sure you’ll understand…)
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Audrey Jane Gaskins,Jaime Mendiola, Myriam Afeiche,Niels Jørgensen,Shanna H Swan, Jorge E Chavarro. Physical activity and television watching in relation to semen quality in young men. Br J Sports Med doi:10.1136/bjsports-2012-091644 Published Online First 4 February 2013
