Diabetes could reduce fertility

A new study has revealed that the sperm from men with diabetes has more DNA damage than sperm from men that do not have the metabolic condition, and suggests that diabetic men may experience some problems with their fertility .
The research, by a team from Queens University, Belfast, examined the sperm from 27 diabetic men, finding that semen volume was significantly less than that in the samples from healthy men, and that when the sperm was measured for DNA damage it was shown to have higher levels of fragmentation and more deletions in DNA.
Fragmented sperm can lead to early miscarriage, a failure of the embryo to develop, a failure to implant or even a failure to get pregnant in the first place.
Ishola Agbaje, a research fellow at Queen’s, commented “As far as we know, this is the first report of the quality of DNA in the nucleus and mitochondria of sperm in diabetes. Our study identifies important evidence of increased DNA fragmentation of nuclear DNA and mitochondrial DNA deletions in sperm from diabetic men. These findings cause concer, as they may have implications for fertility.”
There are concerns that the rise of incidence of diabetes could potentially result in a significant amount of cases of male factor infertility.