Current Topics in Fitness - Performance-enhancing drugs can lower your sperm count

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Performance-enhancing drugs can lower your sperm count

Men who take certain performance enhancing drugs such as androgenic (anabolic) steroids, namely testosterone, may have considerably lower sperm counts. Normally, the pituitary gland in the brain instructs the testicles to make more testosterone. But if the body has too much testosterone, then the gland won’t activate the testes to produce more, so it actually gets turned off. As a result, the testes shrink and sperm production decreases. So, a low sperm count is a natural consequence of taking androgenic steroids such as testosterone or other related precursors such as androstenedione (andro) and DHEA, which are converted into testosterone.

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