Obesity at a young age brings in many health problems and now it turns out that boys could become impotent and infertile as they attain adulthood.
The University at Buffalo researchers examined the effects of childhood obesity on reproduction capacity of boys and found obesity lowering the testosterone levels of boys by half compared to healthy boys.
The current study is continuation of a 2004 analysis related to low testosterone levels or hypogonadism in obese, type 2 diabetic adult males and a re-confirmation study in 2010 that looked at more than 2,000 obese young people, both diabetic and non diabetic.
The current study included 50 children, both obese and normal. All the participants underwent tests to measure their total and free testosterone, estradiol and estrogen hormone levels.
"We were surprised to observe a 50 percent reduction in testosterone in this pediatric study because these obese males were young and were not diabetic," Dr. Paresh Dandona, chief of the Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism in the UB medical school and first author on the study, said in a news release. "The implications of our findings are, frankly, horrendous because these boys are potentially impotent and infertile. The message is a grim one with massive epidemiological implications."
However, bringing hopes in children affected with obesity, researchers put forward surgery and weight loss the options to bring back the testosterone levels to normal.
"The good news is that we know that testosterone levels do return to normal in obese adult males who undergo gastric bypass surgery. It's possible that levels also will return to normal through weight loss as a result of lifestyle change, although this needs to be confirmed by larger studies," he said.
After proving their theory, the authors emphasized the importance of following a healthy lifestyle during childhood.
"These findings demonstrate that the effect of obesity is powerful, even in the young, and that lifestyle and nutritional intake starting in childhood have major repercussions throughout all stages of life," Dandona said.
Findings of the study have been published in Clinical Endocrinology.
The revelations come at a time when childhood obesity has more than tripled in the United States over the past 30 years. A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report shows a shocking increase in the number of obese children aged six to 11, from 7 percent in 1980 to 20 percent in 2008.
