TUESDAY, June 27, 2023 (HealthDay News) — Having even a gentle COVID-19 infection could trigger a months-long drop in sperm, a brand new study finds.
Researchers found each lower sperm concentrations and fewer sperm that were in a position to swim when studying men a mean of 100 days after COVID-19 infection, which is enough time for brand new sperm to be produced.
“There have been previous studies that show semen quality is affected within the short term following a COVID infection but, so far as we’re aware, none which have followed men for an extended time period,” said researcher Rocio Núñez-Calonge, scientific advisor at UR International Group on the Scientific Reproduction Unit in Madrid, Spain.
“We assumed that semen quality would improve once recent sperm were being generated, but this was not the case. We don’t know the way long it’d take for semen quality to be restored and it could be the case that COVID has caused everlasting damage, even in men who suffered only a gentle infection,” Núñez-Calonge added.
Núñez-Calonge and her colleagues decided to review this after observing that in some men attending clinics in Spain for assisted reproduction treatment, semen quality was worse after COVID-19 infection than before the infection, despite the fact that they’d recovered and the infection was mild.
“Because it takes roughly 78 days to create recent sperm, it seemed appropriate to guage semen quality no less than three months after recovery from COVID,” she said.
The research team recruited 45 men with a mean age of 31 at six reproductive clinics in Spain between February 2020 and October 2022. All had a confirmed diagnosis of mild COVID. The clinics had data from evaluation of semen samples taken before the lads were infected.
The boys had one other semen sample taken between 17 and 516 days after infection.
The researchers analyzed all of the samples taken as much as 100 days after infection, after which analyzed a subset of samples taken greater than 100 days later.
They found statistically significant differences in numerous metrics, including semen volume, which was down 20%, and sperm concentration, which was down 26.5%. Additionally they found a drop in sperm count, down 37.5%, and total motility, which is with the ability to move and swim forward, down 9%. Numbers of live sperm were also down 5%.
Motility and the entire sperm count were essentially the most severely affected. Half of the lads had total sperm counts that were 57% lower after COVID in comparison with their pre-COVID samples, the study discovered. The form of the sperm was not significantly affected.
Sperm concentration and motility had still not improved over time within the later samples analyzed.
The findings were presented Monday on the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology annual meeting, in Copenhagen. Findings presented at medical meetings must be considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.
“The continuing effect of COVID infection on semen quality on this later period could also be attributable to everlasting damage on account of the virus, even in mild infection. We imagine clinicians should pay attention to the damaging effects of SARS-CoV-2 virus on male fertility. It is especially interesting that this decrease in semen quality occurs in patients with mild COVID infection, which implies that the virus can affect male fertility without the lads showing any clinical symptoms of the disease,” Núñez-Calonge said in a gathering news release.
Inflammation damage to the immune system may play a task, Núñez-Calonge said.
“The inflammatory process can destroy germ cells by infiltrating the white blood cells involved within the immune system, and reduce testosterone levels by affecting the interstitial cells that produce the male hormone,” she said.
“It must be mentioned that impairment of semen parameters is probably not on account of a direct effect of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. There are more likely to be additional aspects that contribute to long-term sperm parameters decrease, but whose identity is currently unknown,” she added. “Moreover, we didn’t measure hormonal levels on this study: Intense changes in testosterone, a key player involved in male reproductive health, has previously been reported in COVID-infected male patients.”
More information
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more on COVID-19 and fertility.
SOURCE: European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology, news release, June 26, 2023