How Obesity Leads to Male Infertility

More than 135 million individuals were affected by obesity in India. Prevalence of obesity in India is varying from rural to urban and state-wise.

- Dr. Harish Rajak, Dr. Vijay K Patel

The obesity is defined as anomalous or unwarranted fat accumulation in the body which significantly affect human health and it is measured by the concept of body mass index (BMI) expressed as weight (in kilograms) of person divided by the square of height (in metres) of that person. The BMI over 30 is considered obese and BMI between 25 to 30 is considered overweight. According to World Health Organization (WHO) over 1.9 billion adults (39% of men and 40% of women) with age more than 18 years and older were overweight worldwide, of these over 650 million adults became obese in the year 2016 only. Obesity is caused by multiple factors such as inactive lifestyle, uncontrolled diet, reduction in physical activity, bad nutritional habits, stress, junk food and genetic factor. The obesity alters physical appearance as well as disrupts the hormones balance with in the human body. The obesity is a worldwide health predicament, which encourage the various health disorders such as diabetes, coronary heart disease and sleep apnoea. The various scientific reports reported that the obesity significantly affects fertility and sperm quality in reproductive-age men. Sallmen el. al. repotted that overweight and obese men have 1.5 to 2 times lower sperm counts when compare to the normal men in reproductive age. In the present scenario, artificial reproductive technologies (ART) mainly intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) is being increasing applied in couples with declined fertility capacity. The later techniques involves injection of a single sperm straight into cytoplasm of an egg for preparation of embryos. The present review focus on how obesity affects the fertility and sperm quality in male along with treatment modalities.

Male Obesity and Infertility