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The male vanity paradox

In the cold light of evolutionary theory, male fertility for any species relates to the ability to pass on one’s genes to future generations.

Males of many animal species achieve this by making themselves as attractive to the female as possible. This generally involves a lot of formalised preening, adornments such as colourful crests and gorgeous feathers, making themselves appear as big as possible and strutting one’s stuff! This is also often linked to territorial behaviours, such as staking out a patch and intimidating other males in order to keep the available females to themselves.

As humans, we pretend we are above such primitive behaviours, but even the most cursory glance around a crowd reveals that we are not nearly as remote from our animal cousins in this matter as we would like to think.

For instance, a lot of young western men under the age of 35 seem to be engaged in a contest to grow the biggest, chunkiest beard possible. This is the human equivalent of growing a crest or a mane to demonstrate an alpha male who is full of vitality and virility.

Now scientists believe that they have uncovered what they call an evolutionary paradox in human male preening behaviour designed to attract females. It transpires that some of these behaviours are actually detrimental to fertility.

The behaviour in question is the current trend for men to take steroids and other medications to improve body shape and reverse male-pattern baldness. These medications can be detrimental to sperm production, hindering the very aim of passing on their genes that they are supposed to facilitate by making them more attractive to the female! Herein lies the paradox.

Anabolic steroids mimic the effect of the male hormone testosterone in the body and are used as performance-enhancing drugs to increase muscle growth. Unfortunately, they also fool the brain’s pituitary gland into thinking the testes are going into overdrive and it stops producing other hormones necessary for sperm production. This means the steroid user can become infertile.

A somewhat similar theme can sometimes be seen in men using medication to prevent male pattern baldness. The drug finasteride, used in some of these products, changes the way testosterone is metabolised in the body and can limit hair loss, but side effects can include erectile dysfunction and impact fertility.

This phenomenon has now been named as the Mossman-Pacey Paradox after the two lead scientists who described it, and in the US it is causing heartache for a significant number of couples that are trying to conceive.

Dr James Mossman, who is based at Brown University in Rhode Island in the US said, “I noticed some men coming in to have their fertility tested and these guys were huge. They are trying to look really big, to look like the pinnacles of evolution. But they are making themselves very unfit in an evolutionary sense, because without exception they had no sperm in their ejaculation at all.”

Fellow researcher, Professor Allan Pacey from the University of Sheffield in the UK said, “I would say more anabolic steroid users are likely to become sterile than you would think, 90% probably. Baldness is a bit more hit-and-miss, but sales are going through the roof and that makes it an increasingly common problem.”

So the message for men wishing to improve their fertility is to avoid anabolic steroids unless prescribed by a physician for a medical condition, and to consider carefully the possible side effects that may manifest with hair regrowth products.

The researchers suggest that males thinking they are more appealing to the opposite sex while killing their fertility is an ironic situation that is probably unique to humans.

As Professor Pacey said, “The irony is one thing, but I think the key message is for fertility patients. It keeps cropping up in clinics and the message is not getting out to young men that it’s a problem and a bit of info could save them a lot of heartache.”

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