Bengaluru: Techies of IT city Bengaluru may be accustomed to working through the day and night, and being deprived of sleep even for two days at a stretch, but it appears they are paying a huge price. Their disturbed sleep pattern is not only taking a toll on their health, but also affecting their fertility, going by city doctors.
"We are seeing many cases of infertility among IT and management professionals, who often find conceiving difficult because of their work patterns. Sleep deprivation takes a toll on all aspects of our health, including reproduction. Our body's hormone levels respond to the established cycle of light and dark in a very complex way. Our sleep and waking patterns establish hormonal balance," says Dr Santosh Gupta, fertility consultant at Nova IVI Fertility, which recently treated a couple married for five years , and working in a management firm as they had not been able to have a child.
"When the sun sets or the lights go out, your body produces the hormone melatonin that regulates the sleeping and waking cycles. The same hormone is responsible for protecting eggs when they are close to ovulation, guarding them against reactive oxidative stress and free radicals," the doctor adds.
Explains Dr Manjula BC, IVF expert at the Indira IVF Hospital, "Testosterone is a male hormone that is crucial for reproduction and the most daily testosterone release in men occurs during sleep. Studies have found that those who have disturbed sleep, with less than six hours a night, also have lower sperm quality. Poor sleep interferes with the body's ability to produce sperm." Lack of sleep
may also contribute to decreased libido and sex, according to her. Going by experts a minimum of five hours of sleep at night is a must to maintain good health. Eating fruits and vegetables also leads to better production of sperm than a diet made up of meats and fats, they reveal.
