Episode 5 - What the New Research Says About Exercise and Sperm Quality

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We’re switching gears to talk about male fertility—the other part of the equation to get pregnant. It's a well-known fact that over 40% of infertility cases are caused by issues with sperm.  We'll explore in this episode:

• The state of sperm quality decline
• Possible causes of this steady decline 
• The Frog Study
• Which level of exercise is best for sperm quality

Follow me on instagram @dradriennewei

Website: www.adriennewei.com

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to the Practically Fertile Podcast.
I'm Adrienne Wee, doctor ofacupuncture and Chinese medicine
, functional medicinepractitioner and functional
nutritionist.
I specialize in using anevidence-based method, blending
principles of East Asianmedicine and modern functional
medicine to help women optimizefertility and get pregnant.

(00:22):
I believe in a world whereevery woman who wants to be a
mother becomes one.
If you're tired of being toldthat you're infertile and you
want to take the right steps toget pregnant naturally and
quickly, this podcast is for you.
Hey, fertile friend, we'regoing to switch gears a little
bit today and talk about maleinfertility.

(00:43):
After all, the sperm is just asimportant as the egg, and male
infertility is on the rise.
More than 40% of infertilitycases are now caused by issues
with a sperm.
So for this reason, before Iget into the nitty-gritty, I
think that you should beproactive and test the sperm
before you get to that one-yearmark.

(01:04):
Should be proactive and testthe sperm before you get to that
one-year mark.
I can't tell you how many timesI've worked with patients who
go through a lot of emotionaldistress, feeling like a failure
and at the end, the problem iswith the sperm.
And a lot of doctors do notproactively test sperm until you
get to that one year of tryingto conceive, mark, because
that's the technical definitionof infertility if you've been

(01:26):
trying for longer than one year.
But I want to share with you asuper easy way to do this test
without going to the doctor.
There's actually an at-homesperm testing kit from a company
called FELLOW F-E-L-L-O-W.
I'm not a partner and they'renot paying me anything, so this
is not an advertisement for them.

(01:47):
I just recommend it to mypatients and many of them are
very happy that they tested thesperm early, and giving a sample
at home is probably a lot lessawkward than having to go to a
doctor's office.
So the website is calledmeetfellowcom
M-E-E-T-F-E-L-L-O-Wcom.
Again, fellow is not paying meto say anything and they don't

(02:11):
even know who I am, and I justthink that this is one thing
that you can check off the boxand make sure that there aren't
any issues.
Now there are many factors thataffect sperm quality, but I
specifically want to talk aboutexercise and sperm quality today
.
Because I specifically want totalk about exercise and sperm
quality today?
Because I hear this a lot.
My husband is super consciousabout what he eats and he works

(02:33):
out every single day, so I thinkhe is really healthy.
The reality is healthy doesn'talways mean fertile.
A healthy diet isn't always afertile diet.
A healthy lifestyle isn'talways a fertile diet.
A healthy lifestyle isn'talways a fertile lifestyle.
There's such a thing as toomuch of a good thing and turns
out there is a sweet spot forexercising that's optimal for

(02:56):
sperm quality.
Now, before I get into thedetails, I do want to talk about
the rise of male factor-relatedinfertility.
How do we get here?
I don't know if you know, butthe World Healthulate motility

(03:27):
morphology, which is the normalnumber of sperm.
So back in 1980, when theseparameters were first introduced
, what was considered normal wasthe following A volume per
ejaculate greater than 2milliliters, count greater than
40 million, motility greaterthan 50% and morphology greater

(03:50):
than 50%.
This was the first edition andthen there have been five more
iterations since then.
Right now we're using the sixthedition and the current
standards are this Volumegreater than 1.4 milliliters, so
a little bit of a decrease from1980.

(04:11):
Count greater than 39 million,so not too big of a change.
Motility greater than 42%,versus 50% back in 1980.
And sperm morphology greaterthan 4% is now considered normal
.
So the number of normal spermwent from 50% to 4% from 1980 to

(04:35):
2021.
What was considered normal in1980 has dropped off
significantly.
How did that happen?
Of course, many reasons theenvironment, poor diet, toxin
exposure, stress.
There's this very well-knownstudy called the frog study.
It's not really called that,but it's known as the frog study

(04:57):
because the frogs were thestudy subjects.
In 1997, the EPA wanted to findout the environmental impact of
atrazine.
Atrazine is a popular herbicide.
It's used to control weed forcorn and sugarcane crops.
Corn is a huge industry becauseof high fructose corn syrup, so

(05:18):
there's a large demand for corn.
This researcher by the name ofDr Hayes, tyrone Hayes.
He did a study and the resultsshowed reproductive damage to
frogs.
Just a little bit of atrazine0.1 parts per billion was enough
to cause male frogs to produceeggs in the testes and start to

(05:43):
become more feminine.
And that's because atrazinedisrupts an enzyme called
aromatase.
Aromatase is what convertstestosterone to estrogen and the
research showed that, if thisdisruption is severe enough,
there were cases of feminizationand sex reversal in frogs.

(06:05):
Pretty scary.
The concern is if the atrazinein water source is affecting
wildlife, it could affect humanstoo.
But this chemical, atrazine, isstill used today.
The EPA didn't ban the chemicalbecause, you guessed it, the
companies that make atrazinethrough a huge fit did their own

(06:28):
study that's most likely biasedand said Dr Hayes' research is
not correct.
Of course they have an interestto keep making atrazine.
They don't want to go out ofbusiness.
And this is just one example ofhormone disrupting chemicals,
how they can affect our healthby getting into the water supply
.

(06:48):
Let me give you another example.
My husband and I the other daypicked up a jar of this fancy
pickled vegetables for acharcuterie board and I saw that
it was imported from Greece.
So I'm like, ooh, super fancy.
I didn't read the ingredientsbecause I thought what could
possibly be in there?
That's bad.

(07:09):
It's just vinegar.
It's just pickled vegetables.
Of course, after I got home andI was preparing the charcuterie
board, I read the ingredientsand at first everything seemed
normal just vegetables andvinegar.
But at the very end it saysyellow number five.
Why on earth would a jar ofvegetables need to have a yellow

(07:32):
tint?
Why is it even added?
What value does it add?
And I will bet money on it thatthis very same jar will not
have yellow number five if it'ssold in Greece, because yellow
number five is not allowed inthe EU.
The point of my rant is this wehave to be more diligent in the

(07:54):
US and other countries to makesure that we're reading labels
and we're not consumingendocrine disrupting chemicals
because our regulations are morerelaxed here.
I have my opinions on why thatis, and we'll save it for
another day, but we're exposedto more chemicals today than
ever, and one of the areas ofhealth that's affected is,

(08:14):
unfortunately, our fertility.
Let's go back to the spermquality decline over the last 40
years.
I want to share the resultsfrom this particular study on
physical activity and spermquality because up until now I
haven't seen a lot of data on it.
A few studies do exist, butthey have a lot of variables.

(08:35):
They weren't well controlled,so it was hard to trust the data
, and I feel like so many menalso feel like they need to
worry less about hormonesbecause sperm production is
continuous and lifelong, so theyfeel like they have less to
worry about.
But that's not the case.
As we just talked about it afew minutes ago, sperm quality

(08:58):
is an all-time low.
So this study was done with 143young and healthy men aged 18 to
25.
So these are not men who aretrying to conceive, who might be
slightly older, and in thisstudy they used the term
physical activity instead ofexercise, because exercise is a

(09:19):
very specific way of moving thebody and you're trying to make a
change.
You're hoping for a change inmetabolism, body composition or
you want to improve athleticperformance.
So the researchers didn'trestrict the type of activities
for the participants.
They accounted for any physicalactivity and lumped them all

(09:43):
together.
So from running intensely forhours to something small like
vacuuming around the house.
In this podcast I'm going to usePA for physical activity,
because otherwise it becomes amouthful.
So the PAs were divided intothree categories low, moderate
and intense and each PA wasmatched to what's known as the

(10:07):
MET, m-e-t, the metabolicequivalent of tasks, and the MET
measures how much energy aperson uses during a particular
activity.
This is something I teachinside my course because when I
talk to patients aboutexercising, everyone's
definition of low versus intenseactivity is so different.

(10:31):
It is way easier to use the METas a way to measure intensity.
Basically, if an activity has aMET score of over six, that's
considered intense.
There is a difference betweenjogging at a pace of 2 miles per
hour versus 8 miles per hour.
A MET value of 1 to 2 will beconsidered low intensity, like

(10:54):
vacuuming, because it doesn'tuse a lot of energy.
Also, in this study, they tookinto consideration the frequency
and duration of each type ofactivity.
The participants can dowhatever activity they wanted
throughout the week.
The MET value and how manyminutes and how many times a
week were all part of theequation.

(11:14):
These are the results from thestudy, and the researchers
measured the quality of thesperm based on the WHO
guidelines.
The volume of the sample wasabout the same across the board
between the three groups.
The group that was sedentaryhad the highest sperm count,
coming in at 80 million, butthey also had the lowest

(11:39):
motility, at 37%.
The intense activity group hadthe next highest sperm count, at
66 million, and the moderategroup had 53 million.
The motility in the moderateand intense groups were not all
that different 47% and 45%respectively.

(12:03):
What was most shocking was themorphology, since we typically
associate exercise with beinghealthy and assume that the more
exercise, the healthier theperson.
But what the study revealed wasthe intense activity group did
not have the highest morphology,it was the moderate activity

(12:24):
group.
This group the moderate group,averaged about five hours a week
, with activities like walkingat a pace of three to four miles
per hour, playing double tennismatches, yoga, dancing,
recreational swimming, biking at10 miles per hour or less and
yard work.
The morphology was 7% for thisgroup, 6% for the intense PA

(12:49):
group and 5% for the low PAgroup, and I know that this is
only a 1 or 2% difference, butwhen you're talking about
millions of sperm, that's a lotof sperm.
The theory about whyhigh-intensity PA might be
damaging for sperm is becauseintense activities do cause a

(13:10):
lot of oxidative stress andinflammation.
Also, depending on the athleticwear, some can be very
restrictive and put a lot ofpressure on the testes.
The results from this studytell us that physical activity,
the type, the duration and thefrequency all matter.
You can participate in a veryintense activity like lifting

(13:31):
heavy weights for an hour, butif you're doing that once a week
, it's going to be better thantraining for a marathon that
requires intense running 10hours a week.
Now, does this mean, if yourhusband is currently working out
every single day and liftingweights for an hour each day,
that he should all of a suddenstop?
No, he doesn't have to stop.

(13:53):
But here's something to thinkabout.
If the sperm quality is alreadyan issue, then he might want to
consider toning down theintensity and frequency and dial
it down to a more moderatelevel.
On the other hand, if he'ssedentary and he's not really
moving around, then he will needto dial up the activity a bit.

(14:13):
If sperm quality isn't the issueat the moment, it doesn't mean
that you have a free pass.
It can certainly mean thatthree months from now mean that
you have a free pass.
It can certainly mean thatthree months from now, the
script could be flipped and it'sa whole different story.
All right, we're about to wrapup this episode Now.
For some men, this might seemrestrictive, especially if
they're used to a certainlifestyle, and there could be

(14:36):
some resistance to this.
But I think that this does needto be a conversation to be had,
as uncomfortable as it is.
What I consistently see is womenare doing most of the work when
it comes to trying to getpregnant, changing diet,
researching supplements, goingto appointments, joining support

(14:57):
groups, but men have to pulltheir weight as well.
You are a team.
You can't accomplish any goalswhen it's just one person who is
doing all the work.
If you have any questions aboutthis episode, please feel free
to contact me.
Send me a text, email me, sendme a DM on Instagram.

(15:17):
All right, fertile friend.
If you found this episodehelpful, please subscribe and
share it with somebody who mightbenefit and, until next time,
take care of yourself and youramazing body.
You are one fertile cycle awayfrom getting pregnant.