Trying to conceive? — Turns out, watching TV can lower your chances. So get off the couch and exercise! — Click to Tweet.
Several new studies have focused on how exercise affects sperm counts, particularly in comparison to TV and its own effects on sperm counts.
It turns out, even among moderately active young men — those aged between 18 and 22 — experience greater benefits to their sperm counts the more they exercise.
For example, a study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine found that men who exercised 15 hours or more per week had 73 percent higher sperm counts than their counterparts who exercised less than 5 hours per week. They also found that men who watched 20 or more hours of TV per week had 44 percent fewer sperm than men who hardly watched TV at all.
The Implications
Clearly there’s a connection between how much TV a person watches and how much that person is likely to exercise. And that connection makes sense. We’ve known for a long time that there’s a correlation between a person’s health and the health of their sperm. But the connections might be deeper and more complicated than this simple correlation.
One reason we need to conduct more research is that the heavy TV watchers didn’t have damaged sperm — they just had less of it. So the swimmers they did have seemed perfectly healthy. Typically, behaviors that hinder sperm production also decrease the quality of the sperm produced. There are several possible causes that might explain this different pattern here.
What’s Causing the Lower Sperm Counts?
Some researchers think that it’s simply a result of hormonal changes. Challenging the body with exercise often results in higher serum testosterone levels, which may cause increased sperm production. But other speculation has become prominent as well.
Some people think that lower sperm production might be caused by the position that people sit in when watching TV. It tends to bunch the legs and scrotal area together, causing higher body temperatures in people’s private parts. Some studies have shown that sperm production decreases when the testes are heated even by just a few degrees. But other studies have been inconclusive, and in any case, it doesn’t explain why the sperm are still healthy.
Researchers have pointed out that other studies should be done that ask whether other sedentary activities — such as reading or sitting at the computer — are also correlated with lower sperm counts. Unfortunately, the innate limitations of this study limit the definitive conclusions that can be drawn.
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