Research

Hormonal

Male obesity causes male subfertility through hormonal imbalance (hypogonadism), chronic inflammation, oxidative stress, and increased scrotal temperature, leading to reduced sperm quality and DNA damage.

If you are overweight or obese, your fertility may be compromised due to hormonal changes, inflammation, and heat stress on the testes. Losing weight through lifestyle changes or surgery can improve testosterone levels and sperm count, suggesting that weight management is a critical step for men trying to conceive.

GoodSupportsHIGH confidence
Obesity, a serious etiologic factor for male subfertility in modern society... obesity is correlated with reductions in sperm concentration and motility, increase in sperm DNA damage and changes in reproductive hormones.
Yue Liu et al. · Reproduction · 2017

Why this rating

The paper is a review citing multiple clinical investigations and animal experiments, establishing strong correlation and plausible biological mechanisms.

Source

Obesity, a serious etiologic factor for male subfertility in modern society

Yue Liu et al. · Reproduction · 2017

DOI 10.1530/rep-17-0161

narrative_reviewCited 249×
Read the paper
DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

This is one finding among thousands. Every one is graded and traced to its source, so you can see what the evidence actually supports. Browse the research →