Men turn to supplements and online advice as fertility concerns surge
You probably won't be able to have kids. It was Valentine's Day last year when a urologist gave Conor the results of his semen analysis. The 30-year-old project manager had been trying to have a baby with his wife for just over a year. "Up until that point, I still didn't think [the problem] could possibly be me. Men are taught that you're pretty much forever fertile," he said. After researching online, he ended up ordering an assortment of supplements from Amazon: zinc and vitamins B12, E, D, as well as folate and lycopene from a German company called Sunday Naturals. "I set myself a three-month window," Conor said. He was going to try every research-backed fertility improvement method he could find.
There was a whole world of content waiting for him on the internet, where discourse around male fertility is booming. On Reddit threads like r/maleinfertility, thousands of men exchange tips, based on varying degrees of scientific evidence. They're dipping their balls in ice water, eating raw garlic cloves, taking supplements like ashwagandha, shilajit and black maca. Meanwhile, fertility advice has infiltrated the brosphere on TikTok. "Men should have to spend nine months getting into the best physical shape of their life before having a baby," says one man, in a video that has been liked 2.5 million times. Another creator takes viewers behind the scenes of his fertilitymaxxing daily routine, consisting of press-ups, cold plunges and protein-heavy lunches (the video is captioned: "Just a regular 33-year-old improving his health and fertility one day at a time ").
It's a short road from proteinmaxxing to spermaxxing, as a lot of these creators are already part of the gym bro and biohacking world. Longevity guru Bryan Johnson proudly posted on X about eliminating 85% of microplastics from his ejaculate (research has linked microplastics and reduced sperm count), while a certain corner of TikTok is littered with people sharing their at-home sperm mobility tests, with captions like, "Not all swimmers are Michael Phelps". A few weeks ago, the 2026 Sperm Racing World Cup was announced, with 'athletes' from 128 countries battling for a $100,000 prize. Last year's edition, won by a 20-year-old USC student, involved competitors having their fresh ejaculate analysed under a microscope.
There is evidence male infertility is a growing problem - with lifestyle factors like smoking, obesity, alcohol and heat exposure linked to poorer sperm parameters. One 2017 meta-analysis found that sperm counts in Western countries had decreased by nearly 60%, while a Fertility Index Survey found that 16% of men under 34 have experienced fertility issues, compared with 6% of men over 55. As it stands, roughly half of heterosexual couples experiencing infertility involve a male factor. Problems conceiving have long been framed as a gendered issue, with women often 'blamed' for infertility and undergoing rounds of invasive treatments before sperm is even tested, but awareness is changing.
In many ways, male fertility content on the internet - both factual and dubious - is filling a gap left by our healthcare system. Recent research from Fertility Action revealed that 80.6% of GPs hadn't received education on male fertility, while 97% wouldn't be able to accurately examine for varicocele - a cluster of enlarged veins near the testicles which can lower sperm production and quality. Men are often an "afterthought" in fertility challenges, said Dr Ippokratis Sarris, director of King's Fertility, a consultant in reproductive medicine and chair-elect of the British Fertility Society. But in the past decade, Sarris said this has been changing, as men have become more open about their fertility challenges. They've gone from asking him how they can support their partners to asking him, 'What can I do?'.
The wellness industrial complex has responded with characteristic eagerness, and new products and platforms focused on male fertility have arrived on the market. Earlier this year, a digital platform launched called Spermaxxing, which enables users to optimise their reproductive health with daily tracking and lab analysis, while the supplement SwimClub claims to boost sperm quality and volume within 90 days. While men gush about their OTC pills and powders on online forums, experts caution against ordering something without booking a medical consultation first. "You really don't know what's in the packet," Sarris said.
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