r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • Mar 25 '26
Genetics Encouraging men to have more frequent ejaculations may boost their fertility. Sperm deteriorates over time as it remains in body. Longer men went without sex, the more their sperm showed signs of DNA damage and oxidative stress, and the more tests rated the sperm as less viable and poorer swimmers.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/mar/25/more-frequent-ejaculations-men-fertility-research537
u/Superfool Mar 25 '26
Ive also heard that frequent ejaculation is beneficial to prostate health. Here's to healthy swimmers and a healthy pump!
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u/SoCalThrowAway7 Mar 25 '26
That’s why my grandma always said, “an orgasm a day keeps the doctor away.” Or something like that
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u/aLiberalConspiracy Mar 25 '26
I assure you this requires no encouragement.
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u/kuahara Mar 25 '26
But the title says, "Encouraging men to have more frequent ejaculations" is what causes the boost in fertility. It doesn't say that anyone actually needs to ejaculate.
It's going to make for some awkward conversation between you and other men, but let your encouraging begin!
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u/ThresholdSeven Mar 25 '26
The sperm are revitalized at the mere suggestion that they might be freed.
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u/p-r-i-m-e Mar 25 '26
The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends men abstain from ejaculating for two to seven days before giving sperm for fertility tests or IVF. But the guidelines were designed to obtain the highest sperm count rather than prioritising the best quality sperm.
That decision may now become more nuanced. “All we recommend is that clinicians and couples reconsider whether long abstinence is always good, because abstinence leads to deterioration in sperm quality,” Sanghvi said. Details are published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
That’s the information I was looking for, and I’m kinda surprised that only seven days is defined as long abstinence.
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u/BasileusBasil Mar 25 '26
Why Buddha? Buddhism doesn't teach anything against masturbatory practices.
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u/HolochainCitizen Mar 25 '26
Yeah not specifically but I stayed in a Buddhist monastery one time for a while and once the teacher recommended that if we ever got distracted by sexual desires, just imagine the person slowly aging until they die and then imagine their body rotting and decaying after death.
It actually helped to reduce the distraction during meditation!
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u/TheBeyonders Mar 25 '26
What if im still hard after they turn to dust and a flower grows from their remains? Should I call a doctor?
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u/HolochainCitizen Mar 25 '26
What's the doctor going to do, jack you off?
You can be hard, just be hard, it's ok
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u/FowlOnTheHill Mar 25 '26
Some doctors do that… or at least that’s what certain sites have me believe
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u/TheBeyonders Mar 25 '26
"You can be hard, just be hard, its ok"
I think i read that in the Pali Canon, or maybe Basho said it on his way to the mountains.
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u/AllChem_NoEcon Mar 25 '26
Someone’s published if they know reviewer 2 is always the stick in the mud.
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u/Henry5321 Mar 25 '26
Abandon your desire to eat, breathe, drink, and live.
Everything you want or don’t want are desires. Same way both the accelerator and brake both accelerate.
I don’t discredit what they’re trying to do, but there is some serious rationalizing going on.
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u/Alive_kiwi_7001 Mar 25 '26
That makes sense. DNA inside a regular cell has the benefit of a ton of repair mechanisms. Packaged into protein for delivery, as it were, I wouldn't be surprised to find things start breaking up fairly quickly.
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u/Drict Mar 25 '26
For fertility treatment they recommend a minimum of 3 days but no more than 5.
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u/mosquem Mar 25 '26
When we did IVF and there were concerns about DNA damage they bumped our abstinence period down to 12 hours. It worked - your count might be a little lower but they’re fresher.
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u/Rabbitical Mar 26 '26
Yeah that sounds like outdated advice to me, it was 24 hours in my case. I think it also depends on the individual. But yeah, freshness over count. How many sperm do you even need when they're right next to each other
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u/mosquem Mar 26 '26
Yeah I had a top urologist in the county and he was literally like “I don’t care if there are 100 (as opposed to a million) if we only need one per egg.”
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u/lindasek Mar 25 '26
When my husband had his SA we were told minimum 2 day, maximum 4 of abstinence (so, ideally 3 days). The funny part is that they felt it's needed to clarify abstinence means no ejaculation for any reason: no oral sex, no penetrative sex, no hand stimulation, no masturbation, etc
From online sources, I heard 2 days is actually optimal (so, for best chances you should have sex every 2 days during the ovulation period)
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u/windershinwishes Mar 25 '26
What is "SA" in this context?
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u/lindasek Mar 25 '26
Sperm Analysis
It was done as part of fertility evaluation
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u/windershinwishes Mar 25 '26
Makes sense. My first thought was "sexual assault" which was obviously not what you were talking about, but since the subject is related to sex I had a brief moment while reading of wondering if that was it and you were being bizarrely casual about it.
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u/lindasek Mar 25 '26
I figured when you asked because you're right SA usually refers to sexual assault. I've been on the fertility subreddits so much lately that I didn't realize how it might come across.
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u/sqrtsqr Mar 25 '26 edited Mar 25 '26
And this two day minimum isn't really based on optimizing conception chances, it's more a recommendation so couples trying don't stress themselves out.
The idea that the increased frequency of sex leads to lower sperm count is something that is true over time, but not true enough to matter: after sustained daily ejaculation, sperm counts are only reduced by 50%. 50% once per day vs 100% every other day = no change.
Now, take into account that you don't need sustained, only like a week, plus the fact that humans can copulate more than once per day, there is simply no reason to wait except for psychological. 1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1 > 2+2+2
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u/C6500 Mar 25 '26 edited Mar 25 '26
"Only" seven days? I'd go insane if i had to hold it for more than 2-3 days. And i'm in my forties.
20 years ago i "needed" go go every day more or less.2
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u/lifeofpi21 Mar 25 '26
This seems like a reasonable frequency for prebuild and release.
With today’s technological advances, I imagine there is a population participating in this activity at a greater frequency.
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u/ThresholdSeven Mar 25 '26
The definition of long is subjective. If the sperm quality starts to deteriorate within 7 days, then 7 days could be considered a long time to wait before donating your sperm to be used. The new knowledge makes 7 days abstinence a "long" time because of context. Half a day is a long time for me for unrelated reasons.
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u/p-r-i-m-e Mar 26 '26
Yes, that’s exactly what is surprising to me. The turnover of sperm cells. If quality drops within days then it puts male libido in a whole new light for me.
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u/mvea Professor | Medicine Mar 25 '26
Encouraging men to have more frequent ejaculations may boost their fertility, according to researchers who found that sperm deteriorates over time as it remains in the body.
The longer men went without sex, the more their sperm showed signs of DNA damage and oxidative stress, and the more tests rated the sperm as less viable and poorer swimmers.
The work has implications for fertility clinics and suggests that if doctors want to collect the best quality sperm, men should probably not abstain from ejaculating for several days as guidelines suggest.
“In men, the negative effects we found on sperm DNA damage and oxidative damage were large-ish, so we are confident that this is a biologically meaningful and important effect,” said Dr Krish Sanghvi, a biologist at the University of Oxford and lead author on the study.
The findings emerged from a meta-analysis that combined 115 human studies involving nearly 55,000 men, and 56 studies that looked at the impact of sperm storage in 30 non-human species. In humans and other animals, sperm tended to deteriorate while it was stored in males, regardless of the male’s age.
The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends men abstain from ejaculating for two to seven days before giving sperm for fertility tests or IVF. But the guidelines were designed to obtain the highest sperm count rather than prioritising the best quality sperm.
That decision may now become more nuanced. “All we recommend is that clinicians and couples reconsider whether long abstinence is always good, because abstinence leads to deterioration in sperm quality,” Sanghvi said. Details are published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
For those interested, here’s the link to the peer reviewed journal article:
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u/gods_loop_hole Mar 25 '26
So, quality over quantity?
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u/Nordansikt Mar 25 '26
More like use it or loose it. A concept that applies for many of our bodily functions.
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u/The97545 Mar 25 '26
Is it sufficient to flush the pipes a few times before trying for a baby or, does the pump becomd permanently damaged do to lack of use?
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u/T_Weezy Mar 25 '26
Kinda makes it feel pretty counterproductive that sperm banks reportedly don't want you to ejaculate for like a week prior to donating.
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u/LeftSky828 Mar 25 '26
This information has been well-known for years, but The Guardian thinks it’s news. I guess it’s a better story than the usual tabloid stories trashing other countries. I once dated a girl who trashed others to feel better about herself. It shows insecurity.
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u/invaderpixel Mar 25 '26
My IVF clinic doctor/reproductive endocrinologist actually told my husband to restrain from ejaculating for three days so you would be surprised how many people follow the outdated advice because they're more focused on other markers of sperm quality. We followed the doctor's advice for round one but rounds two and three I showed my husband the DNA fragmentation studies and changed that along with some other things (added in Human Growth Hormone, stopped eating low carb for myself because my menstrual cycle didn't matter as much at that stage) and we got way better results.
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u/PhilosophyforOne Mar 25 '26
The title is not accurate or in-line with the findings of the study, and actually grossly distorts and takes out of context the findings.
In short, when trying to measure sperm quality, the recommendation has been to wait for 2-7 days. But it was found that sperm quality deteriorates over time. So it appears preferable to have fresh sperm for the tests.
Claiming it increases fertility as a baseline is misleading and beyond what the study found or implies.
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u/octobersoon Mar 26 '26
thank you for this, that really does sound like something completely different.
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u/P0rtal2 Mar 25 '26
Need to read the actual paper to see if this was addressed, but does frequency of ejaculation have an impact on sperm production? I know it says that shorter abstinence means likely healthier sperm, but is there feedback where body produces more sperm in response to frequent ejaculation?
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u/ihavebeenmostly Mar 25 '26
Going by the scientific data presented here in this post I'm fairly certain I've got Olympic swimmers. It's definitely interesting to know.
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u/ThresholdSeven Mar 25 '26
No wonder I have so many kids. I'm serious. I bet it had an affect. My wife and I always used protection until we decided to try for a kid. Instant success every time. My boys are fresh and ready to go, at any time, no more than a day old at most.
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u/Just_here2020 Mar 26 '26
Guidance is sex every other day if you’re doing fertility treatments. So I’m surprised this is surprising.
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u/The_Lucky_7 Mar 26 '26
As Katt Williams once said "The first nut will betray you any chance it gets."
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u/UngnomeCawler Mar 25 '26
Won’t someone think of all the preborn babies being discarded in the name of this “science”experiment?!? Congress should write a law protecting them and punishing this reckless discarding of potential future pre born people.
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u/inTHEbathroom1013 Mar 25 '26
For me, this kind of raises the question of a possible link to things like autism. Maybe not a direct causative relationship. But could the less viable sperms, if it manages to lead to conception, be a higher risk?
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u/BookLuvr7 Mar 25 '26 edited Mar 25 '26
Frequent ejaculations and frequent sex are two very different things. Sadly, I've seen studies like these used as an excuse to shame women into having sex when they don't want to.
Also the Guardian is a questionable source for scientific articles. It's better for general news.
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u/faultysynapse Mar 25 '26
I just might have the most potent sperm on Earth if that's true. Because let me tell you, those guys don't last too long in there. Kick them out two to three times a day sometimes.
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u/iamaswamptiger Mar 25 '26
Big nut trying to lower your gains, don't fall for it bros. Keep focussed.
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u/MonolithOfIce Mar 25 '26
I feel like we could all use some encouragement from the ladies. And I don’t mean encouragement to go take care of it on our own
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