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Review
. 2020 Mar;9(Suppl 2):S178-S185.
doi: 10.21037/tau.2019.11.07.

The effect of sleep on men's health

Taylor P Kohn  1 , Jaden R Kohn  2 , Nora M Haney  1 , Alexander W Pastuszak  3 , Larry I Lipshultz  4   5
Affiliations
Review

The effect of sleep on men's health

Taylor P Kohn et al. Transl Androl Urol. 2020 Mar.

Abstract

Sleep has increasingly been found to play a role in the overall health of an individual, but sleep quality has also been decreasing with the invasion of technology into the bedroom, "always-on" lifestyles, and increasing demands on one's time when awake. We have herein reviewed the literature to assess the impact of sleep on erectile dysfunction, lower urinary tract symptoms, hypogonadal symptoms, low testosterone, and male infertility. We find that erectile dysfunction, lower urinary tract symptoms, and hypogonadal symptoms all have a linear relationship with sleep, as worse symptoms occur with poorer sleep. Male infertility, interestingly, has an inverse U-shaped relation to sleep in which men with too little and too much sleep seem to be more at risk for infertility than those with 7-8 hours of sleep. Finally, the literature has not demonstrated a significant clinical relationship between hypogonadal symptoms or testosterone levels and sleep. Overall, a large number of men experience poor quality sleep. Given the impact that poor sleep can have on general health and men's health, in particular, screening for poor sleep quality and recommending interventions to improve sleep are becoming imperative during clinical evaluation and treatment.

Keywords: Health; erectile dysfunction; lower urinary tract symptoms; men’s; sleep.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflicts of Interest: The focused issue “Contemporary Issues and Controversies in Men’s Health” was commissioned by the editorial office without any funding or sponsorship. LIL serves as an unpaid editorial board member of Translational Andrology and Urology from Nov 2019 to Oct 2021. LIL and AWP served as the unpaid Guest Editors of the focused issue. The other authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Sleep functioning as a moderator of clinical symptoms.
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