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American Journal of Epidemiology Advance Access originally published online on July 27, 2009
American Journal of Epidemiology 2009 170(5):559-565; doi:10.1093/aje/kwp168
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American Journal of Epidemiology © The Author 2009. Published by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org.

ORIGINAL CONTRIBUTIONS

Good Semen Quality and Life Expectancy: A Cohort Study of 43,277 Men

Tina Kold Jensen, Rune Jacobsen, Kaare Christensen, Niels Christian Nielsen and Erik Bostofte

Correspondence to Dr. Tina Kold Jensen, Department of Environmental Medicine, Institute of Public Health, University of Southern Denmark, Winsloewsparken 17, 5000 Odense C, Denmark (e-mail: tkjensen{at}health.sdu.dk).

Received for publication March 11, 2009. Accepted for publication May 26, 2009.

Fertility status may predict later mortality, but no studies have examined the effect of semen quality on subsequent mortality. Men referred to the Copenhagen Sperm Analysis Laboratory by general practitioners and urologists from 1963 to 2001 were, through a unique personal identification number, linked to the Danish central registers that hold information on all cases of cancer, causes of death, and number of children in the Danish population. The men were followed until December 31, 2001, death, or censoring, whichever occurred first, and the total mortality and cause-specific mortality of the cohort were compared with those of all age-standardized Danish men or according to semen characteristics. Among 43,277 men without azospermia referred for infertility problems, mortality decreased as the sperm concentration increased up to a threshold of 40 million/mL. As the percentages of motile and morphologically normal spermatozoa and semen volume increased, mortality decreased in a dose-response manner (Ptrend < 0.05). The decrease in mortality among men with good semen quality was due to a decrease in a wide range of diseases and was found among men both with and without children; therefore, the decrease in mortality could not be attributed solely to lifestyle and/or social factors. Semen quality may therefore be a fundamental biomarker of overall male health.

cohort studies; fertility; life expectancy; mortality; semen analysis


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RE: "GOOD SEMEN QUALITY AND LIFE EXPECTANCY: A COHORT STUDY OF 43,277 MEN"
Am. J. Epidemiol., December 1, 2009; 170(11): 1453 - 1453.
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