Men may be less fertile as a result of COVID-19 infection, scientists warn



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Beyond the horrific death toll from COVID-19, there is a litany of medical conditions that researchers are just beginning to uncover. One potential concern requiring further consideration is the impact of the virus on male fertility.

Scientists have suspected for some time that the new SARS virus has the potential to wreak havoc with sperm count. A review of the state of research, accompanied by strong new evidence, points to the need to monitor men’s reproductive systems as vulnerable pathways for coronavirus infection.

Researchers at Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan, China, analyzed existing reports on possible mechanisms that SARS-CoV-2 could use to interfere with male reproduction.

While they cannot say for sure that there was a marked reduction in fertility, they cautioned that there is every reason to pay close attention to this possibility.

“We propose that there is an urgent need to follow male COVID-19 patients during their recovery,” microbiologist Yu Tian and reproductive biologist Li-quan Zhou say in their report.

Medical researchers have become intimately familiar with how SARS-CoV-2 creeps into our bodies and promotes a wave of destructive immune responses.

At the heart of its break and enter strategy is a common cellular receptor called the angiotensin-converting enzyme 2, or ACE2. Wherever the body uses this enzyme, it’s a safe bet that SARS-CoV-2 will leave its mark, putting several organs at risk.

This means that the virus not only affects our olfactory and respiratory systems, but can also impact our digestive system, weaken our circulatory system, and even trigger inflammatory responses deep within our brain.

The fact that the tissue inside the testes is just another potential target has not been lost on the researchers. The first studies finding the presence of the virus in semen samples added to the growing need for investigation.

But the results are not exactly consistent. Previous research on SARS-CoV-2’s predecessor, SARS-CoV-1, also tended to rule out serious concerns that the testes were vulnerable, with most studies finding no trace of the virus in its fabrics.

Now, however, the weight of evidence now appears to be tilting well in favor of arguments that testicular tissue is generally damaged as a direct result of COVID.

A recently published longitudinal survey conducted by researchers at Justus-Liebig University in Germany and Allameh Tabataba’i University in Iran reports direct experimental evidence of such damage.

Instead, their study looked at markers of inflammation in tissue samples from 84 men diagnosed with COVID-19, alongside 105 controls. They also assessed the quality of the sperm and looked for signs of oxidative stress in the samples.

It was clear that COVID-19 was making at least some difference, with inflammation and cellular stress appearing twice as severe in those who had tested positive for the virus, compared to those who had not.

In addition, the sperm of the infected men was about three times slower, and their sperm count was also much lower.

“These effects on sperm are associated with inferior sperm quality and reduced fertility potential,” says lead researcher Behzad Hajizadeh Maleki, a sports scientist at Justus-Liebig University.

“Although these effects tended to improve over time, they remained significantly and abnormally higher in COVID-19 patients, and the magnitude of these changes was also related to the severity of the disease.”

What this means for men recovering from SARS-CoV-2 infection is unclear, especially in the long term. The review and experimental study’s authors call for more research before making a call on how – or even if – decreased fertility will have a real impact on conception efforts.

Yet, while many countries around the world are already facing a growing fertility crisis that promises to dampen population growth in the future, COVID-19 could be another hurdle to overcome.

Hopes rest on vaccines that will end the worst of the pandemic in the near future. But even if our best efforts win, the scars of the coronavirus will remain on our bodies and our people for a long time.

This research was published in the reproduction, here and here.

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