That’s the conclusion of recent research. It seems that men who become a father are less likely to die from heart related diseases than childless fathers.

While this is obviously good news for all dads, for men who are unable to father a child due to infertility problems this is just more pressure.

Speaking with reporters, Michael Eisenberg of Stanford University one of the institutions who collaborated in the study said: “There is emerging evidence that male infertility is a window into a man’s later health. Maybe it’s telling us that something else is involved in their inability to have kids.”

The study, which is one of the largest ever carried out, investigated 138,000 married men looking at fertility and mortality. It concluded there was no definite link between fatherhood and mortality, something also found in another study in the Philippines. This latter research also found that testosterone levels in men dropped after they became a father.

As high testosterone level is also related to high cholesterol and by extrapolation it can be the cause of heart disease and heart attacks.

While becoming a father does appear to have some beneficial effect upon a man’s overall well being, scientists are still unsure exactly how this works. The research, while positive, did not take into account particular factors such as anxiety and other cardiovascular stressors.

In conclusion the US study is a useful piece of work, but it does not answer the central question as to why male infertility is on the increase.