Vasectomy Risks

After a vasectomy, men face an increased risk of developing a rare type of dementia marked by a steady loss of language skills, researchers found. Researchers at Northwestern University in Illinois linked male sterilisation surgery to a neurological condition called primary progressive aphasia.

They surveyed 47 men with the condition and 57 men who did not have it. Of those with primary progressive aphasia. 40 per cent had undergone a vasectomy, compared with 16 per cent of the others. Preliminary data also linked vasectomies to another form of dementia. Among 30 men with frontotemporal dementia, more than a third had undergone a vasectomy, the researchers said.

Primary progressive aphasia, which affects people usually after age 50, can be mistaken for Alzheimer's disease since initial symptoms are similar. In this incurable disorder, nerve cells die in the brain region responsible for language skills. Sandra Weintraub, who led the study, acknowledged that the research involved a small number of people. "This is the kind of news that ends up scaring people even though they may not need to be scared," she said.

"This was just a clinical observation with one of my patients telling me he noticed the onset of his symptoms a couple of years after he had a vasectomy, and wondered whether that might have something to do with it."