Association of Wet Cupping With Sperm Quality and Mitochondrial Gene Expression in a Rat Model of Metabolic Male Infertility

Infertility is an increasingly common condition associated with significant psychological and economic burdens. Treatments of infertility have limited success rates and come with a high cost and emotional toll, which highlights the need for other therapies. Wet cupping has been investigated for the treatment of different conditions, but not infertility. We therefore investigated the effects of wet cupping in a rat model of metabolic male infertility. Sperm concentration and viability, testicular weight, epididymal weight, Johnson score, and serum testosterone (T) significantly improved after wet cupping (p-value = 0.026, 0.026, 0.006, 0.015, and 0.004, respectively). In addition, wet cupping was associated with an increased expression of NDUF8 and SDHB mitochondrial genes (p-value = 0.041), and TNF-α (p-value = 0.035), while no significant effect was observed on sperm’s morphology and motility, and follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) and luteinizing hormone (LH) serum levels. Our results suggest that wet cupping can have a potential role in treating male infertility. However, there are several limitations, such as serum inflammatory markers and oxidative stress markers were not measured. Therefore, further studies are required to investigate the related mechanism and to prove any beneficial effects.