Men Have Biological Clocks, Too

[CShine]

For years, women of a certain age -- say, 35 and older -- have listened anxiously to the ticking of their biological clocks, mindful that with each passing birthday their fertility was decreasing and their chances of producing a baby with a birth defect was increasing. Now, it's the guys' turn to pay attention to their own biological clocks. While fertility doesn't decrease as dramatically as for a woman, a man does have a biological clock, experts say. But these scientists disagree on exactly when the alarm sounds.

In general, "there's a decline in testosterone of about 1 percent per year for men after age 30," said Dr. Harry Fisch, director of the Male Reproductive Center at Columbia University in New York City. But it's difficult to pinpoint which men will have trouble conceiving a child with a birth defect based on age, he said. "The problem is the biological clock ticks at different speeds for different men," he explained.

While Fisch encourages men who want to be fathers to do so "sooner rather than later," another fertility expert contends there's not a big rush. The loud ticking of the clock doesn't usually begin until a man is in his 50s, said Dr. Larry Lipshultz, chairman of the American Urological Association's Council on Reproductive Health.

"As a man gets over 50, his sperm count decreases statistically but not clinically significantly," Lipshultz said. In other words, a test could detect the decline, but a man could still easily become a father. "Men will always make sperm," Lipshultz added. "In that sense, there is not the same biological clock" as for women, who have no more eggs left by menopause.

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