QWhen left untreated, diabetes deregulates hormonal control of male reproduction and affects the autonomic nervous system, which can lead to sexual dysfunction and, consequently, infertility. These findings were made by biologist Davi Abeid Pontes in his master's thesis presented at the Institute of Biology (IB). The research, carried out on male rats, describes the mechanisms of action that lead to the association of infertility with diabetes. “My motivation for the study was the high rate of Brazilians with diabetes who do not know they have the disease. Therefore, I decided to study the relationships between pathologies”, explains the biologist, who was supervised by professor Wilma De Grava Kempinas.

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Pontes highlights that studies on the relationship between diabetes and infertility did not relate hormonal factors, ejaculation and problems in the testicles and other reproductive organs, which are interconnected. While some experimental studies pointed to a specific factor, others focused on hormonal disorders. In this sense, the research opens up clues for several future investigations into the links between the mechanisms. These clues could even generate therapeutic proposals for infertility arising from diseases such as diabetes and also those related to metabolic disorders.

The main finding of the research funded by Fapesp will be published in a scientific journal and refers to the symptom of gradual degeneration of the autonomic nervous system that occurs with insulin insufficiency. According to Davi Pontes, this process would be directly linked to ejaculation control. Tests carried out on two groups of animals, one considered as control and the other, contaminated with the disease, demonstrated the difficulty of sick rats in ejaculating. “When we crossed males and females, we did sperm counts. In the control group, the volume was normal, while in the females that were crossed with the diabetic rats, we did not find any sperm. This means the males were unable to ejaculate,” he argues.

Through the research, carried out at the Universidade Estadual Paulista Júlio de Mesquita Filho (Unesp), in Botucatu, the biologist also observed that testosterone replacement – ​​a treatment indicated in other cases of infertility – did not change the deregulation of the hormonal system that controls reproduction. . As diabetes promotes a decrease in testosterone production, the idea was that, by replacing it, there would be a recovery in this hormonal situation, which did not occur. On the contrary, in some cases, it even worsened the animal's condition. On the other hand, Pontes observed that exogenous hormone replacement improved the weight of the prostate and seminal vesicle, organs of the male genitourinary system that are also degenerated in the development of diabetes.

The techniques used for the tests were sperm counts, hormonal levels, histological analyses, analysis of sexual behavior and in vitro tests to assess how much the vas deferens – male reproductive organ – contracts during the ejaculation process.