An article from...somewhere out there..
Does wearing tight jeans make men infertile?
If you wear tight pants, are you on the fast track to infertility?
In 1986, a scientific study suggested wearing tight pants or underwear could lower a man's sperm count. It was around the time tight jeans were going out of fashion. And when the media got hold of the story, baggy trousers were in.
Can tight jeans really lower a man's sperm count, or is it just a rumour started by opponents of revealing trousers? It's time for an experiment and we've enlisted the help of five virile young men. Hot young group Avant Garde have volunteered to put their tackle on the line.
The Avant Garde boys, Adam, Lee, Luke, Chris and Dave, have agreed to give one sperm sample now and another after wearing tight pants for six weeks.
The man in charge of the experiment is Dr Rick Gordon, a Sydney andrologist (male reproduction expert). He knows when it comes to testes, the right temperature is paramount.
"God intended your scrotum to hang in the breeze and be a couple of degrees cooler than the rest of your body, because sperm don't like heat. People implied from that that if you heated up the scrotum by wearing tight-fitting underwear or tight jeans then perhaps you would interfere with sperm production. So there was a real fad through the '70s and '80s by wearing tight clothing and then people realised that maybe that's not good for fertility," he says.
The testes are a very delicate piece of machinery. Sperm starts off as a germ cell in the seminiferous tubes, it takes six to eight weeks to move through to the epididymis, to mature and be stored, ready for the big event.
In Australia, it is estimated that male infertility affects about one in 20 men, and is the underlying reason for 40 percent of infertile couples using assisted reproduction.
When testing if a man is fertile, here's what is examined:
Sperm count. Men are most likely to be fertile with a count greater than 20 million sperm per milliliter.
Sperm movement (motility). Men are most likely to be fertile if more than 50 percent of sperm are moving.
Sperm shape and structure (morphology). Men are most likely to be fertile if more than 30 percent of the sperm have a normal shape and structure. Normal sperm have an oval head with a long tail. Abnormal sperm have a large, small, tapered or crooked head, or a kinky, curled or double tail.
The quality of semen can also vary at different times. For example, it can be affected by illness.
Now, the band had their sperm count checked yesterday and it's okay, and they'll give a second sample in six weeks.
Avant Garde have a hot gig, so it's the perfect excuse to buy some extra tight pants ready for our experiment.
And the latest in men's fashions? It's girls jeans! The thing about these guys (and a lot of young guys) is that they wear girl's jeans. They say it's because they fit better around the bum and are more stylish than men's jeans.
With restrictive pants firmly in place, it's time to put those testes to the test in this rather hot and sweaty experiment.
