Global Health Asia-Pacific Issue 1 | 2023 GHT64B | Page 51

Anxiety over the drop in sperm counts may be overblown
sperm , even with the gold standard technique of �the laboratory process� haemocytometry , is really difficult ,” Dr Allan Pacey , Professor of Andrology at the University of Sheffield , told the Guardian . “ I believe that over time we have simply got better at it because of the development of training and quality control programmes around the world . I still think this is much of what we are seeing in the data .”
Sceptics also point to other studies on specific populations that buck the trend observed in the meta-analysis , such as one conducted on men in Copenhagen that showed sperm counts actually went up over time , while suggesting that more research was needed to reach a solid conclusion .
Setting aside the various interpretations of these decades-long trends , many researchers agree it ’ s now paramount to gain a broader understanding of male fertility — an area of medicine that hasn ’ t seen as many advances as those made in female fertility .
“ We can argue forever about whether sperm counts were higher in the past , and although I am reasonably convinced they were , no one can prove this definitely . Therefore what we should focus our efforts on is trying to understand what ’ s the status of male reproductive health now ,” Professor Richard Sharpe , a male reproductive health researcher at the University of Edinburgh , told ��o�a� �ea�th �sia��aci�c .
He explained that roughly one in six men of reproductive age across northern Europe already had a sperm count low enough to impact their fertility , meaning that it will take them longer to impregnate their partners , especially for couples trying to conceive in their 30s and 40s , which is becoming the norm in high-income nations where most people face large financial and work burdens .
“ This does not bode well for future fertility ,” he said , stressing that there ’ s been gross underfunding of research into male reproductive health and sperm
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