Tight pants damage sperm quality

Tight pants affect sperm quality

06/25/2013

For some years back in fashion - tight jeans for men. But doctors are worried and warn: Too tight pants harm man power, because the so-called „Skinny jeans“ may have a negative effect on fertility and thus endanger the desire to have children. Too tight clothing can cause overheating of the testicles, the temperature of which affects the quality of the sperm cells. If pants or underwear press the sexual organs against the warming body, the heat accumulation in the scrotum destroys the sperm. This often leads to temporary infertility.

Testes are naturally outside the body because two to three degrees Celsius below normal body temperature is considered optimal for unrestricted semen production. Everything about it does not tolerate sperm. „So that the hot arterial blood does not overheat the testicles, a venous plexus around the genital organs serves as a cooling system. But this only works as long as a man stands or walks“, explains Dr. Reinhold Schaefer, urologist and medical director of the medical network Uro-GmbH North Rhine. „When sitting - reinforced by exciting and tight pants - it does not work anymore. The pinching substance accumulates the heat and the testicle temperature rises noticeably.“ In their production, sperm are no longer as agile as normal sperm cells. Physicians prove this with the example of a fever disease. If men have a body temperature of over 38 degrees for two to three days, the fever heats the genital organs as much as when sitting with their legs crossed. Temporarily, sperm production may collapse to the point where it lasts four to twelve weeks before ejaculation returns to sperm.

„But what matters most is not so much what men wear on clothes as what they are doing. In addition to tight underwear and pants, particularly sedentary activities or prolonged driving increase the temperature in the scrotum“, knows Dr. Schaefer from many years of practical experience. „If you have a laptop on your lap or if you turn up the seat heating in the car, this heat effect is enhanced.“ Although it would take weeks or even months to overheat the testicles for permanent damage, a long exposure to heat for hours temporarily reduces sperm quality. „Therefore, men who want to have children should not take hot baths, do without electric blankets in winter and do not go under the solarium or in the sauna“, advises the urologist. (Pm)

Image: Thommy Weiss