Antidepressant treatment may reduce male fertility
By Karla Gale
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Treatment with paroxetine (Paxil), which belongs to the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) class of antidepressant drugs, increases DNA fragmentation in sperm, according to research presented today at the 64th annual meeting of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine in San Francisco.
Although the study did not directly evaluate male fertility, the five-fold increase in the number of men who developed abnormal sperm DNA while being treated with paroxetine is “troubling” and “suggests an adverse effect on fertility,” co-investigator Dr. Cigdem Tanrikut, from Harvard Medical School in Boston, told Reuters Health.
In a clinical trial she described as “the first study to assess the impact of an SSRI on semen parameters in healthy men,” 35 men took paroxetine for 5 weeks. The drug was administered in once-daily doses of 10 mg the first week, 20 mg in the second week, 30 mg the third and fourth week, and 20 mg in the fifth week.
Tests were conducted on semen samples obtained prior to starting paroxetine and after 4 weeks of treatment. The average DNA fragmentation score increased from 13.8 percent before paroxetine was begun to 30.3 percent at week 4, a statistically significant amount.
The percentage of men who had a fragmentation score of 30 percent or higher before treatment rose from 10 percent to 50 percent.
Semen analyses conducted throughout the study, however, showed normal volume, concentration, movement and appearance.
Paroxetine was also associated with significant sexual dysfunction, with one third of men reporting problems with erectile function and nearly half reporting ejaculatory difficulties.
“DNA integrity is crucial to normal fertility,” Tanrikut said. For example, increased DNA fragmentation of sperm increases the risk of failure of intrauterine insemination.
“Abnormal sperm DNA integrity even affects pregnancy outcomes of the most advanced assisted reproductive technologies, such as in vitro fertilization (IVF),” she added. “In fact, it is the only male factor finding that has been shown to affect intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) results.”
“A large proportion of patients on (SSRIs) may have their fertility affected,” co-investigator Dr. Peter N. Schlegel, at Weill Medical College of Cornell University in New York, observed in correspondence with Reuters Health.
Among infertile men taking an SSRI, “a standard semen analysis won’t measure this effect,” Schlegel pointed out, and “a special test for DNA fragmentation…should be considered.”
The sperm appears to be damaged by a slowing down of their transport through the body, “a novel mechanism of damage,” he said. “Most agents affect fertility by knocking down sperm production. Slowing down sperm transport can allow sperm to be damaged (by higher temperatures, or just ‘getting too old’ — being ejaculated after they should have been).”
“We have seen severe cases where the sperm are slowed down so much that almost no sperm appear in the ejaculate.”
Based on these findings, the research team is planning larger studies using other SSRI antidepressants.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Related Posts:
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Obese men are more than three times as likely to have low sperm counts compared with their normal-weight peers, a study out this month in the journal Fertility and Sterility shows. The heaviest men were also at triple the risk of having a low count of progressively motile sperm — sperm
Full Post: Obese men have worse sperm quality than leaner men
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Anne Harding NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - The smarter the man, the higher the quality of his sperm, new research published in the journal Intelligence shows. But women having difficulty conceiving shouldn’t question their partner’s intelligence and men who aren’t quite geniuses should not worry about their ability to father children, lead researcher Rosalind Arden of
Full Post: Smartest men may also have highest sperm quality
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - People with Parkinson’s disease who also suffer from depression may find they’re helped more by an older class of antidepressants than newer types of medication, a small clinical trial sponsored by the National Institutes of Health suggests. The study found that paroxetine (brand name, Paxil), a so-called SSRI antidepressant, appears to
Full Post: Older antidepressants work for Parkinson patients
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TAIPEI (Reuters) - A Taiwan woman has given birth to healthy twins using the 13-year-old frozen sperm of a former testicular cancer patient, local media said on Saturday, setting a record for the island. The twin boys were born using the sperm taken from a man surnamed Chen, then 23, who was diagnosed with testicular cancer
Full Post: Woman has twins from cancer survivor’s 13-year-old sperm
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - For young women with fibroids — benign tumors inside the uterus that can lead to pain, abnormal bleeding and other symptoms — a treatment called uterine artery embolization (UAE) does not harm fertility, according to results of a study conducted in Spain. Hysterectomy, the traditional operation for fibroids, solves the problem
Full Post: Pregnancy possible after fibroid treatment