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Can obesity pharmacotherapy be used to manage male infertility?

Obesity-related subfertility is an increasingly recognized concern. Pharmacotherapies (particularly glucagon-like peptide 1 receptor agonists and combination therapies), alongside lifestyle intervention, enable meaningful and sustainable weight loss in people with and without type 2 diabetes mellitus. Weight loss can benefit sperm parameters, but the optimal amount and rate of weight loss requires further study.

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Fig. 1: Aetiopathogenesis of obesity-related spermatozoal dysfunction.

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Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge the support of the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Leicester Biomedical Research Centre and NIHR Imperial Biomedical Research Centre.

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Correspondence to Amy E. Morrison.

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Competing interests

D.P. has received honoraria for lectures from Novo Nordisk, Eli Lilly, Boehringer Ingelheim and Johnson and Johnson and has received research grants from Novo Nordisk, Novo Nordisk UK Research Foundation and Academy of Medical Sciences/Diabetes UK. C.N.J. received research-led grants from Logixx Pharma. T.Y. is supported by the NIHR Leicester BRC and has received funding from Astra Zeneca for an investigator-initiated project. M.J.D. has acted as a consultant/advisor and speaker for Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk and Sanofi, has attended advisory boards for Amgen, AstraZeneca, Biomea Fusion, Carmot/Roche, Sanofi, Zealand Pharma and Regeneron and has acted as a speaker for AstraZeneca and Boehringer Ingelheim. M.J.D. has received grants from AstraZeneca, Boehringer Ingelheim and Novo Nordisk. The other authors declare no competing interests.

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Morrison, A.E., Papamargaritis, D., Jayasena, C.N. et al. Can obesity pharmacotherapy be used to manage male infertility?. Nat Rev Endocrinol 21, 518–520 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41574-025-01151-7

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