IMR Press / FBL / Volume 24 / Issue 4 / DOI: 10.2741/4745

Frontiers in Bioscience-Landmark (FBL) is published by IMR Press from Volume 26 Issue 5 (2021). Previous articles were published by another publisher on a subscription basis, and they are hosted by IMR Press on imrpress.com as a courtesy and upon agreement with Frontiers in Bioscience.

Article
Life history tradeoffs in humans: increased life expectancy with sperm count reduction
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1 Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Viral Oncology, The Clinical Innovation & Research Centre, Shenzhen Hospital, Southern Medical University, Shenzhen, Guangdong Pr. 518100, China
2 Department of Pathology, Shenzhen Hospital, Southern Medical University, Shenzhen, Guangdong Pr. 518100, China
3 Department of Oncology, Shenzhen Hospital, Southern Medical University, Shenzhen, Guangdong Pr. 518100, China
4 Medical College, Xi’an Peihua University, Xi’an, Shaanxi Pr. 710125, China
5 Department of Health Statistics, The Fourth Military Medical University, Xi’an, Shaanxi Pr. 710032, China
*Correspondence: ruian79@yahoo.com (Rui-An Wang)
Front. Biosci. (Landmark Ed) 2019, 24(4), 712–722; https://doi.org/10.2741/4745
Published: 1 March 2019
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Leader sequences of coronavirus are altered during infection)
Abstract

Although not without controversy, as a general trend, the human sperm count is declining world-wide. One major reason for such a decline is an increase in the human life-span. According to the life history tradeoff theory, fecundity is inversely related to the lifespan; the longer the lifespan, the lower the fecundity. This is essential to the maintainance of diversity and balance of different species. Such a corrleation validated by experimental data that show that the extension of life in Caenorhabditis elegans, Drosophila and Rodents is associated with reduction in fecundity. The demographic data from a public data source, shows that the total fertility rate is positively correlated with the infant death rate, it is inversely correlated with the life expectancy. We postulate that the fall in spermatogenesis might be regulated by the neuroendocrine system that underlie human longevity.

Keywords
Life history tradeoffs
Biorelativity
Sperm count
Lifespan
Total fertility rate
Figures
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