Men who want to delay fatherhood should freeze their sperm before the age of 25 in order to combat problems with infertility, say experts.
The warning comes after figures suggest fertility clinics are seeing as much as a six-fold rise in cases of infertile men in the past three years.
Professor Luciano Nardo, a consultant gynaecologist at the Reproductive Health Group in Cheshire, said sperm issues accounted for around five per cent of all problems with couples he saw in 2014 but now represents 30 per cent.
He said that few men are aware that the quality of their semen – and its DNA integrity – is likely to start to deteriorate by their mid twenties.
His position is similar to Dr Kevin Smith, a senior lecturer in genetics, who believes it is reasonable for men as young as 18 to consider having their sperm frozen to counter the risk of genetic mutation.
