Becoming a father for the first time is an experience that men are trying to prolong as much as possible in Italy, more than in other European countries, the National Institute of Statistics (Istat) has revealed.
According to the data, Italians have become parents, on average, at 35,8 years old, the oldest age in the European Union. Next come the French (33,9 years) and Germans (33,2 years).
One in three men exceeds this limit and still remains childless over the age of 36. Among the main reasons is the fact that the functional characteristics of sperm – motility, morphology and even DNA damage – worsen with increasing age, according to scientific evidence.
Furthermore, with age, the time of exposure to external environmental pollutants increases, such as microplastics, which have been shown to be a problem for male fertility.
The study was designed by experts from the Italian Society of Andrology (SAI), on the occasion of “Father's Day” in Italy.
“In Italy, the age at which people have their first child has increased by 10 years, from 25 at the end of the 1990s to around 36 today. Our society is giving a late role to reproduction, forgetting that fertility is both male and female, it peaks between the ages of 20 and 30 and man's fertilizing potential is in sharp decline”, explains Alessandro Palmieri, president from SIA.
According to the Italian expert, “it is necessary to teach young people the importance of healthy fertility, at the right time and preserved”, in addition to being “essential to dispel the myth of fertile men at all ages”.
SAI experts also warned about the likelihood of children developing short- and long-term health problems and announced a new supplement to “help” male fertility, in collaboration with the Institute of Clinical Pharmacology at the University of Catanzaro.
The compound is called “Drolessane”, a mix of seven natural substances whose benefits are demonstrated by a review of studies published in the journal Uro.
Two of these substances have specific effects on male fertility: escin, extracted from the seeds and bark of the horse chestnut, an antioxidant useful in preserving fertility, but also in preventing the symptoms of chronic prostatitis implicated in reduced fertility, and lycopene, found in tomatoes, which can increase sperm quality and protect against the effects of free radicals. (HANDLE)
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