Association of diabetes and obesity with sperm parameters and testosterone levels: a meta-analysis

BACKGROUND: The present study performed two distinct meta-analyses with common outcomes (sperm parameters); one was performed in obese individuals (and non-obese controls) and the other in diabetic individuals (and non-diabetic controls). METHODS: PubMed, Embase, The Cochrane library, Web of Science, Scopus databases were searched to collect clinical studies related to the effects of obesity and diabetes on male sperm from inception to on 1st February 2021. Statistical meta-analyses were performed using the RevMan 5.4 software. Stata16 software was used to detect publication bias. The methodological quality of the included studies was assessed with the Ottawa–Newcastle scale using a star-based system. RESULTS: A total of 44 studies were finally included in the present study, which enrolled 20,367 obese patients and 1386 patients with diabetes. The meta-analysis results showed that both obesity and diabetes were associated with reduced semen volume (obese versus non-obese controls: mean difference (MD) = − 0.25, 95% CI = (− 0.33, − 0.16), p < 0.001; diabetes versus non-diabetic controls: MD = − 0.45, 95% CI = (− 0.63, − 0.27), p < 0.001), reduced sperm count (obese versus non-obese controls: MD = − 23.84, 95% CI = (− 30.36, − 17.33), p < 0.001; diabetes versus non-diabetic controls: MD = − 13.12, 95% CI = (− 18.43, − 7.82), p < 0.001), reduced sperm concentration (obese versus non-obese controls: MD = − 7.26, 95% CI = (− 10.07, − 4.46), p < 0.001; diabetes versus non-diabetic controls: MD = − 11.73, 95% CI = (− 21.44, − 2.01), p = 0.02), reduced progressive motility (obese versus non-obese controls: MD = − 5.68, 95% CI = (− 8.79, − 2.56), p < 0.001; diabetes versus non-diabetic controls: MD = − 14.37, 95% CI = (− 21.79, − 6.96), p = 0.001), and decreased testosterone levels (obese versus non-obese controls: MD = − 1.11, 95% CI = (− 1.92, − 0.30), p = 0.007; diabetes versus non-diabetic controls: MD = − 0.37, 95% CI = (− 0.63, − 0.12), p = 0.004). CONCLUSIONS: Current evidence suggests that obesity and diabetes negatively affect sperm parameters in men and are associated with low testosterone levels. Due to the limitation of the number and quality of included studies, the above conclusions need to be verified by more high-quality studies. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13098-021-00728-2.