The Tradeoff between Fertility and Mortality in Men
The objective of this retrospective cohort study is to explore the association between male fertility and life time mortality. The majority of all studies concerning the tradeoff between fertility and mortality are only focussing on women. For men infertility problems over the life course have serious consequence for the mental health may also indicate other physical problems related to other diseases with higher mortality risks. The individual specific sperm count information e.g. total count, motility and morphology should be approximate the fertility status for men for the long-term perspective. From literature reviews only a few information about the eventual biological mechanisms behind these mortality differentials are known.
METHODS:
The major gain of the study is to connect mortality information from death certificates with additional information on the life time morbidity and the reproductive biography from the surviving subjects. The Database includes the socio-demographic information from all patients (n=2294) and their specific spermiogram data collected by the andrological service at Marburg University Hospital in the period from 1949 to 1998. The mortality data will be pooled with survey data with 973 survivors and a proxy interview with 435 surviving family members. The following Survival analysis will be done with Gompertz-(Gamma) Survival Models with comparing fertile and subfertile individuals.
RESULTS:
Accounting for age subfertile men have a significant shorter post-reproductive life span in comparison to fertile ones.
CONCLUSIONS:
The study presents new information about the tradeoff between fertility and the post-reproductive survival in men.