The Truth About Premature Ejaculation

If you care about the quality and quantity of your sperm, don’t use Paxil to treat your premature ejaculation. A recent study included 35 men who taking Paxil or another form of paroxetine for five weeks. The men’s sperm was tested for signs of missing pieces of DNA, a condition also called DNA fragmentation. They found that 50 percent of men had signs of DNA fragmentation, compared to less than 10 percent of men who had the sperm damage before the study began.

“Although this study doesn’t look directly at fertility, we can infer that as many as half of men taking SSRIs have a reduced ability to conceive,” said Dr. Peter Schlegel, professor of reproductive medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York and the study’s senior author. “These men should talk with their physicians about their treatment options.”

When the men stopped taking paroxetine (Paxil), the sperm returned to normal.

One theory is that anti-depressants damage sperm by slowing down its movement through the man’s reproductive system, allowing it to become aged and damaged, thus delaying ejaculation.