The solution is to ejaculate every day

For decades we have had a very clear idea in our minds about male fertility: to have a good semen sample, it is necessary that there is a period of abstinence in which the man should not ejaculate. Now this idea has completely changed with a new review published in which this idea is now completely eliminated, recommending having to ejaculate at least once a day.

What we thought. The guidelines that were conditioning a good part of human reproduction did not come from anywhere, but from the WHO itself, which today recommends between 2 and 7 days without ejaculating before undergoing a seminogram. A fundamental test to be able to see the quality of semen with the number of sperm and their movements.

The new paradigm. The key research It was published at the end of this month of March and its conclusions leave no room for doubt that the protocols of fertility clinics must change sharply.

To reach these conclusions, Oxford researchers They have not fallen short with the data, since they have integrated no less than 115 studies in humans, covering more than 54,800 men, and 56 studies in 30 animal species. This enormous amount of information, whose open data is available on the Dryad platform, has served to demonstrate a fundamental biological phenomenon: post-meiotic senescence.

What does it mean. This term refers, in very extreme terms, to the fact that sperm ages and ‘spoils’ if it is stored for a long time. If we develop it a little further, the researchers point out that prolonged storage in men’s reproductive tracts causes greater DNA damage, triggers oxidative stress and drastically reduces sperm motility.

But the most important thing is that this occurs regardless of the age of the man, or the male in the case of animals. In this way, the problem is not how old a man is to be able to have offspring, but rather how long that sperm has been ‘saved’.

A paradigm shift. The Oxford findings, supported by different previous studies, clash head-on with the current guidelines that the WHO has and that are followed in many parts of the planet. In this way, if the sperm begins to suffer damage from oxidation and DNA fragmentation after a few days, asking fertility patients to wait up to a week of abstinence is counterproductive, since we would be obtaining a sample of poorer quality.

Previous studies had already seen that abstinence longer than 3 days increases sperm DNA fragmentation by up to 50%, but when daily ejaculations are made, sperm vitality improves significantly.

The conclusion. With all this information, Oxford points out that regular ejaculation, whether with sexual intercourse or masturbation, is the best way to guarantee high-quality sperm. This is data that is crucial not only for humans, but also for captive breeding programs for animals.

But where this is going to mark a before and after is in fertility clinics, whether with couples who have problems having a child or even for those men who they donate their semenwhere you would also be getting a sample of lower quality than the real one.

Cover | Generated with Gemini

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