Male Fertility 'n' Manly Solutions...

Junk Food Shown To Cause Infertility In Younger Men

2012-01-22T11:52:00.001-08:00

A joint American and Spanish study released this week shows that Junk food, especially foods with trans fats, can make healthy young men infertile by damaging their sperm.
Fertility experts from Harvard University and the University of Murcia, in southern Spain, analyzed sperm from hundreds of men aged between 18 and 22 and found those whose diet consisted more of junk food had lower quality sperm than those with a healthier diet.
The men were all assessed to ensure they were in good health and had no other issues that might effect their fertility and the sperm of those with "junk" diets seemed less likely to survive inside the womb so they could fertilize the egg and this was even the case if the men were at a balanced weight and took regular exercise.
Japanese scientists looking for similar traits focused more around exercise, showed that of the 215 men they studied those who took moderate exercise, even just brisk walking, had sperm with better swimming abilities than those who were less active.

Male Fertility Breakthrough Achieved By Researchers

2011-11-23T05:32:00.000-08:00

A Ben-Gurion University of the Negev researcher has achieved a significant breakthrough in male fertility, producing normal sperm from mouse cells. "This study may open new therapeutic strategies for infertile men who cannot generate sperm and/or pre-pubertal cancer patients at risk of infertility due to aggressive chemo- or radiotherapy and cannot cryopreserve sperm as in adult patients," explains Prof. Mahmoud Huleihel, of BGU's Shraga Segal Department of Microbiology and Immunology in the Faculty of Health Sciences. The article was just published online in Nature's Asian Journal of Andrology, and according to the authors is "the first original report revealing the generation of morphologically normal spermatozoa from mouse testicular germ cells." It outlines the generation of spermatozoa from mouse testicular germ cells under in vitro culture. Huleihel and his team used a three-dimensional Soft Agar Culture System (SACS) to generate the sperm. Previously, Huleihel pioneered the use of SACS for spermatogenesis in vitro.
source: medicalnewstoday

MEN, ARE YOU KILLING YOUR SPERM? QUANTITY, QUALITY, MATTER IN MALE FERTILITY

2011-11-12T01:51:00.000-08:00

Most men don’t give much thought to their prenatal care, but, according to male-fertility experts, what guys do now could make the difference between becoming a dad or not.
Unlike women -- who have all the eggs they will ever have when they’re born -- men produce sperm all day long. Sperm takes about two to three months to fully mature, so a guy’s behaviour during the past 90 days will affect the baby he makes today, or whether he can make one at all, said Dr. Sijo Parekattil, director of urology at Winter Haven Hospital, where he specializes in male infertility.
Although society tends to focus on women when couples can’t conceive, about half the time it’s the guy’s fault, said Parekattil, who will be among several infertility and adoption experts speaking Saturday at a free conference in Lake Mary, Fla.
Among the more common sperm-killing behaviours guys engage in are keeping cellphones in pants pockets, and working with laptops on their laps, which raises sperm temperature.
Other behaviours not conducive to fatherhood are smoking; excessive drinking; frequenting saunas and hot tubs; wearing tight underwear; using recreational drugs, including marijuana; taking male supplements; and getting sick. Studies show that such behaviours can reduce sperm quality and quantity.
Ashok Agarwal, director of the Center for Reproductive Medicine at the Cleveland Clinic, has conducted several studies on the effects of cellphone radiation on sperm. In one lab study, he found that the viability of sperm exposed to cellphone radiation for one hour dropped by 11 per cent compared with control samples.
His research also found that sperm count, motility and viability dropped more as cellphone exposure went up.
"Cellphones emit radiation, which can potentially harm the sperm in men who carry their phones in their pockets or on their belts," Agarwal said. "We believe these harmful effects are due to the proximity of the phones to the groin area."
A bout with the flu can lower sperm count, too, which is why experts recommend that men trying to have children get flu shots. Chronic diseases, such as high blood pressure and diabetes, also take their toll. Obesity can foster low sperm counts because excess fat causes men to produce more female hormones, Parekattil said.
When men take male supplements, including anabolic steroids, their bodies think they’re making too much testosterone and shut down the testicles, which actually atrophy, Parekattil said. Once guys stop taking supplements, sperm production can take a year to resume.
"A man’s lifestyle can impact the DNA organization inside the sperm and the surface properties of the sperm, which are critical for penetrating the egg, fertilizing it and helping the embryo get to full term," said Dr. Michael Witt, a urologist and male-fertility specialist who divides his time between Winter Park, Fla., and Atlanta.
Avoiding these sperm-unfriendly behaviours and conditions are sometimes all men need to do to give their sperm a boost, Witt said.
Besides having a better understanding of how lifestyle and anatomical stresses can affect sperm, men trying to become dads also benefit from another advance in male infertility: in-home sperm-test kits.
Although the home tests aren’t as sensitive as those in the urologist’s office, they’re a lot more convenient and less embarrassing than giving a sample at the doctor’s office.
A normal sperm count is about 40 million motile sperm per ejaculation, according to the World Health Organization. Most men produce that well into their 70s. However, of those men who have problems with infertility, about 10 per cent to 15 per cent make no sperm, and an additional 30 per cent have low sperm.
Among all men, about one in seven has a varicocele, in which excess blood vessels impair the count and quality of sperm, Witt said. Surgery to remove the veins often restores fertility.
Like 15 per cent of American couples, Clay and Wendi Harris of Orlando, Fla., couldn’t have a baby, despite trying for five years.
"We were tested seven ways to Sunday" to look for the cause, Clay Harris said.
After five failed rounds of in vitro fertilization, they had just about given up. Then tests showed that Harris, 38, had a sperm count in "the midrange." However, Witt reviewed Harris’ sample and thought the sperm quality would improve if he had varicocele surgery.
In November 2010, Harris had the surgery, and afterward, "my sperm count went through the roof. It skyrocketed to 90 million."
Now, the Harrises are expecting a baby boy in early February.
"When we go for our weekly ultrasound," said Clay Harris, "we just stare at the baby on the monitor and hold hands."

SOURCE: VANCOUVER SUN

Skeletons may hold the key to male infertility

2011-08-26T15:55:00.000-07:00

Amanda Schaffer

FOR years, scientists thought they understood the skeleton. It serves as structural support for the body. It stores calcium and phosphate. It contributes to blood-cell development. And it serves, indispensably, as the creepy mascot of horror movies.

But as it turns out, there might be still more to bone.

A few years ago, researchers at Columbia University Medical Centre discovered, to everyone's surprise, that the skeleton seems to help regulate blood sugar. Now the team, led by a geneticist and endocrinologist at the university, Dr Gerard Karsenty, has found that bone might also play an unexpected role in reproduction. If the work pans out, it might help to explain some cases of low fertility in men.

''It's definitely an attention-grabber,'' says Dr William Crowley, of Harvard Medical School, who was not part of the research.

It is well known that the hormones oestrogen and testosterone, produced in the ovaries and testes, help to regulate bone growth. When women reach menopause, oestrogen levels decrease along with bone mass, putting them at increased risk of osteoporosis. As men age, their testosterone and oestrogen levels also decline. Men lose bone but much more slowly than women do. ''We thought that if the sex organs talk to the skeleton, then the skeleton should talk back to the sex organs,'' Karsenty says.

And, apparently, it does.

Early this year, Karsenty's team published a study demonstrating that in mice a protein called osteocalcin, which is produced by bone-forming cells called osteoblasts, binds to a specific receptor on cells of the testes. Male mice that were unable to make osteocalcin (due to genetic manipulation) produced less testosterone and were less fertile. When they mated, they had fewer and smaller offspring.

Fertility in female mice, on the other hand, was not affected by osteocalcin. Cells in their ovaries lacked the receptors to which the bone hormone binds. ''We were surprised by that,'' Karsenty says. ''We thought we'd find a hormone that regulated fertility in both sexes.'' Another compound, as yet unknown, might play the analogous role in females. Human testicular cells also have receptors for the hormone osteocalcin, Karsenty has found.

''I don't know of any hormone that functions in mice but not to some extent in humans,'' says a researcher at Maryland's Johns Hopkins University, Thomas Clemens. Still, the magnitude of the effect might not be the same as in mice.

The main hormone that stimulates testosterone production, in mice and men, is luteinizing, a protein made in the brain. Luteinizing hormone is ''the on-off switch'' for testosterone, Crowley says. Osteocalcin, on the other hand, looks more like a ''dimmer switch'' that modulates the process.

The question is, is it a critical mechanism or a back-up system? Does osteocalcin play a large role in problems such as low sperm count and low testosterone, or is it more peripheral?

Scientists now plan to study men with these problems and to measure their osteocalcin levels, Crowley says. Some of them might have a defect in osteocalcin that underlies their condition.

But, he says: ''I suspect this will turn out to be one chapter in an interesting and more complicated mystery.''

Karsenty has long argued that bone plays a central role in regulating body physiology. ''The body is not an assembly of silos that don't speak to each other but is full of surprising examples of crosstalk,'' he says.

In 2007, he showed that bone helps to regulate blood sugar, a result that startled hormone specialists. Working with mice, he reported that osteocalcin boosts insulin production in the pancreas and increases insulin sensitivity. Insulin, in turn, acts to lower blood sugar.

That work could prove relevant to diabetes, in which the body either does not produce enough insulin or stops heeding it.

Now, Karsenty hopes to unravel the complicated links binding the skeleton, sugar and gender. Bone mass tends to decline with age, he notes, as do blood-sugar control and fertility.

''One idea is that bone might not just be a victim of ageing. It might also be a contributor.''

The New York Times

Infertility Cured In Mice; Are Human Males Next?

2011-08-11T11:01:00.000-07:00

Male infertility may soon be a thing of the past according to mice. This week new research has been released that Japanese scientists have used laboratory-made sperm, using embryonic cells, to restore fertility in sterile mice. This may open up new avenues for researching and treating infertility in people. For example, men may be able to reprogram cells from the skin to act like sperm producing entities. Read on for details.

Historically, researchers have tried for years to make sperm and eggs in a dish, with limited success and some controversy. In 2003, several groups of scientists showed that it was possible to transform mouse embryonic stem cells into both sperm and eggs, but pregnancy failed.

In 2006 another team used lab-grown sperm to produce six mice, but the animals suffered genetic abnormalities and all died early and in 2009, researchers at Newcastle University made headlines by reporting the creation of human sperm in a test tube. Their paper was retracted weeks later on charges of plagiarism.

Now, the researchers added growth factors and other chemicals that are known to control activities such as cell proliferation and differentiation to mouse embryonic stem cells which had the effect of turning the embryonic cells into epiblast-like cells in a lab dish. These cell types are deposited early in embryogenesis in developing organs and persist in several organs into adulthood.

Next, by replicating the signaling process learned from the 2009 experiment, they coaxed the epiblast-like cells to become primordial germ cells. These primitive germ cells were transplanted into the testes of 7-day-old mice that were sterile and therefore couldn't produce sperm naturally. But they now produced normal-looking sperm. Quite the breakthrough.

The lab-made sperm were used to fertilize eggs in a dish, creating 214 embryos, each comprising two cells. The embryos were transplanted into several female mice, which gave birth to a total of 65 healthy male and female pups.

Dr. Saitou, the research team leader stated:

"The mouse babies are just fine and they've had normal, fertile babies of their own. The pregnancy rate achieved in the mice was comparable to what's typically seen using naturally produced sperm and artificial insemination."

Now this exact process can't be identically replicated in adult male humans, but it may be possible to reprogram a man's mature cells into an embryonic-like state, and coax those cells to become healthy sperm in a dish.

The Japanese scientists did just that. They got reprogrammed mouse cells to turn into lab-made sperm, and then used the sperm to fertilize eggs and produce babies in the mice.

The ability to reprogram cells into an embryonic-like state is one of the most exciting advances in biology. But it is still an unreliable technique since it often requires the use of viruses that can trigger tumors. Not surprisingly, the Kyoto scientists found that 20% of the baby mice produced via reprogramming died prematurely, some from tumors.

George Daley, director of the stem-cell transplantation program at Children's Hospital Boston commented:

"It's a brilliant set of experiments. They restored fertility in the mice. It lays the groundwork for major insights into sperm development and fertility. It would be a monumental achievement since there's currently no method for restoring female fertility."

SOURCE:MEDICALNEWSTODAY

Male Fertility May Be Affected By Cell Phone Use

2011-05-23T04:17:00.000-07:00

Men who have been diagnosed with poor sperm quality and who are trying to have children should limit their cell phone use. Researchers have found that while cell phone use appears to increase the level of testosterone circulating in the body, it may also lead to low sperm quality and a decrease in fertility.

"Our findings were a little bit puzzling," says Rany Shamloul, a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology and lead researcher on the project. "We were expecting to find different results, but the results we did find suggest that there could be some intriguing mechanisms at work."

The research team discovered that men who reported cell phone use had higher levels of circulating testosterone but they also had lower levels of luteinizing hormone (LH), an important reproductive hormone that is secreted by the pituitary gland in the brain.

The researchers hypothesize that electromagnetic waves (EMW) emitted by cell phones may have a dual action on male hormone levels and fertility. EMW may increase the number of cells in the testes that produce testosterone; however, by lowering the levels of LH excreted by the pituitary gland, EMW may also block the conversion of this basic circulating type of testosterone to the more active, potent form of testosterone associated with sperm production and fertility.

More in-depth research is needed to determine the exact ways in which EMW affects male fertility.

Source:
Christina Archibald
Queen's University

Laptops Can Seriously Affect A Man's Sperm Quality

2011-05-07T09:57:00.000-07:00

Males who use laptops on their laps are likely to experience scrotal hyperthermia - elevated temperatures in their testicles - which can significantly affect the quality of their sperm, and consequently their fertility, US scientists report in the medical journal Fertility and Sterility. The authors add that even if they protect their laps with a lap pad, scrotal hyperthermia still occurs. The only way a male can be sure to protect his fertility when using a laptop is by placing it on a desk, using it with legs apart while using a lap pad for no longer than 28 minutes, or using the laptop on his lap with knees together for very short periods.

Yelim Sheynkin, M.D. (urologist) and team from the State University of New York at Stony Brook set out to evaluate how to prevent scrotal hyperthermia among male laptop users. Their study involved 29 health male volunteers.

The scientists measured the temperatures of the left and right side of the scrotum, as well as the laptop and lap pad during three separate 60-minute sessions - all the participants were using a laptop in the following ways:

· Sitting with their knees together (approximated legs) and the laptop on their laps

· Sitting with their knees together, laptop on lap, and with lap pad between their laptops and their laps

· Sitting with their legs apart at a 70° angle, laptop on lap, and with lap pad between their laptops and their laps

Their goal was to measure any rise in scrotal temperatures.

The authors wrote that scrotal temperatures went up considerably, in spite of the position of their legs and whether or not they used a lap pad.

Scrotal temperature did go up less and the rise occurred later when the men had their legs apart at a 70° angle. However, even then, the rise in scrotal temperature was cause for concern.

Below are some of the highlighted results:

· Knees together, laptop on lap (no lap pad)
Scrotal temperature rise - left side from 0.96C to 2.31C, right side from 0.91C to 2.56C.
The scrotum started rising in temperature within 11 minutes.

· Knees together, laptop on lap, using lap pad
Scrotal temperature rise - left side from 0.69C to 2.18C, right side from 0.72C to 2.06C.
The scrotum started rising in temperature within 14 minutes.

· Legs apart, laptop on lap, using lap pad
Scrotal temperature rise - left side from 0.66C to 1.41C, right side from 0.62C to 1.47C.
The scrotum started rising in temperature within 28 minutes.

The authors wrote in conclusion:

Sitting position with closely approximated legs is the major cause of scrotal hyperthermia. Scrotal shielding with a lap pad does not protect from scrotal temperature elevation. Prevention of scrotal hyperthermia in LC users presently is not feasible. However, scrotal hyperthermia may be reduced by a modified sitting position (legs apart) and significantly shorter use of LC.

Antioxidants May Improve Male Fertility

2011-01-27T01:36:00.000-08:00

Couples who struggle to conceive could find baby-making help from antioxidants such as vitamin E and zinc, hints a new review of more than 30 studies.

The researchers focused on men who were subfertile — less fertile than average but still capable of making a baby — and found that those who took antioxidants were more than four times as likely to get their partners pregnant than subfertile men who did not take the supplements.

The New Zealand team stops short of saying that antioxidants actually improve fertility, however. More research is needed to be sure.

Subfertility affects one in 20 men and is responsible for half of delayed conceptions. Up to 80 percent of cases are thought to be due to the effects of oxidative stress on sperm cells, lowering both their numbers and their quality.

Oxidative stress happens when molecules known as free radicals, byproducts of cell metabolism, damage DNA and cells' ability to function. Antioxidants, including certain vitamins and nutrients, help to protect cells by stabilizing free radicals.

This has led some experts to wonder if antioxidants might help sperm stay swimmingly healthy.

"Oral supplementation with antioxidants may go some way to improve a couple's chance of conception," lead researcher Marian Showell of the University of Auckland, in New Zealand, told Reuters Health in an e-mail.

To see if the research to date backs up that idea, Showell and her colleagues reviewed 34 studies that involved nearly 3,000 couples undergoing fertility treatments, including in vitro fertilization and intrauterine insemination — two of the most commonly used methods of boosting conception odds when sperm-related issues are involved. Each study investigated the potential role of one or more antioxidants.

Based on 96 pregnancies among 964 couples in 15 of the studies, the researchers found that antioxidant use by the male partner increased the odds of conception four-fold.

Further, men taking antioxidants improved the likelihood of their partners giving birth to a live baby by a factor of five, the researchers report in The Cochrane Library. Only three of the studies contained data on live births, however.

"The findings of increased live birth rates with antioxidants are based on a total of only 20 births — a relatively small number," Dr. Mark Sigman of Brown University, in Providence, R.I., who was not involved in the review, told Reuters Health in an e-mail.

Sigman, whose research found no improvement in semen quality with the antioxidant carnitine, was cautious about making too much of the review's results.

The included studies did not use the same types or numbers of antioxidants, he added. As a result, the researchers could not determine the effectiveness of individual supplements.

In addition to oral supplements, antioxidants can be found in a range of foods, from cranberries to collard greens, tomatoes and mozzarella cheese.

Both Sigman and Showell cautioned that couples should not count on antioxidants to overcome their fertility challenges. Even if certain supplements prove effective, further research is needed to determine which couples could reap the specific benefits.

"It is unrealistic to think one treatment will be good for most couples," noted Sigman.
"There is no evidence that antioxidants cause harm," he added. "But since we also don't know which antioxidants or doses are beneficial, and none have FDA approval for infertility — consumers are left with purchasing these based on very limited data."

SOURCE: fertilityauthority.com

STUDY FINDS GENE LINKED TO MALE INFERTILITY

2010-10-26T16:23:00.000-07:00

A study has shown that mutations in the NR5A1 gene may be responsible for many unexplained cases of male infertility.
The research team, led by scientists from the Pasteur Institute in Paris and Institute of Child Health in London, screened a group of 315 men who were unable to produce sperm, for mutations in the gene NR5A1.
The gene encodes for a protein that has a critical role in the development of the reproductive organs and in reproduction, and has previously been linked to problems with sexual development in both men and women.
The researchers found that seven of the effected individuals had mutations in this gene, while no mutations were found in a control group of 729 men who had normal sperm production.
Four of these men were also found to have altered levels of sex hormones, and another had testicular abnormalities, suggesting a link between the mutations and the problems with sperm production.
The study, published in the American Journal of Human Genetics, represents an important step in the search for genes that may be responsible for male infertility, which accounts for 30 to 50 percent of the fertility problems faced by couples trying to conceive.
The authors told the BBC: 'Approximately four percent of men with otherwise unexplained failure to produce sperm carry mutations in the NR5A1 gene'.
To date only a small number of genes have been linked to male infertility, with the majority of sperm production problems having no obvious cause.
Dr Allan Pacey, a fertility expert from Sheffield University said: 'Although this gene defect affects only a small number of men, we need more studies like this so we can fill in the gaps in

SOURCE: BIONEWS.ORG

Cola lowers sperm count, study shows

2010-05-18T09:15:00.000-07:00

If you're trying to have a baby, it might be a good idea to keep an eye on your partner's cola intake, as a Danish researchers have found that big cola drinkers can have sperm counts up to 30 percent lower than normal.

Researchers at Rigshospitalet, Copenhagen University Hospital, were looking for a link between caffeine and male fertility but found lower sperm counts were not the result of the caffeine in cola, as was previously thought, PhysOrg.com reported.

The researchers studied sperm samples taken from 2554 young men during their physical examinations for Danish military service between 2001 and 2005. The men were also surveyed regarding their intake of caffeine from various sources, including cola, and asked questions about their lifestyle and diet.

Results showed that those with low to moderate total caffeine intake and cola consumption (up to 800mg per day caffeine and up to 14 500ml bottles of cola per week) didn't display any lowering of sperm count. But those with a high intake of caffeine and cola (more than 800mg per day and more than 14 500ml bottles a week) did show a lower sperm count, although the figure was only significant for those who drank a lot of cola.

The 93 men who drank a litre or more of cola a day displayed a much lower count.

Reliable Home Male Fertility Test? Accurate Sperm Counts Now Possible

2010-03-12T02:08:00.000-08:00

A new 'fertility chip', developed by researchers at the University of Twente's MESA+ Institute for Nanotechnology, can accurately count spermatozoa in sperm. This is an important step towards the development of a compact device for reliable 'pre-scanning' of male fertility.

The researchers are publishing the invention of the chip in the scientific journal Lab on a Chip.

Every year more than 10,000 couples in the Netherlands apply for help because of involuntary childlessness. A sperm analysis is typically the first step of fertility research. Testing sperm quality requires stringent pre-test preparations and a specialized laboratory. Tests often have to be repeated two to five times for sufficient reliability. If men can carry out the tests in the privacy of their own home this makes the procedure much less awkward for them. Moreover, the probability of a reliable diagnosis is increased as well. Finally, the researchers think that the costs for health insurers can be decreased too.

Sperm counts

The chip developed by researcher Loes Segerink can accurately count spermatozoa. Concentration is an important indication of the sperm count: the norm for fertility is 20 million spermatozoa per millilitre of ejaculate. Simple home tests are available, but these can only indicate that the sperm count is 'above or below the norm'. These tests are too limited because they do not actually measure the concentration of spermatozoa.

On the new chip, the spermatozoa flow through a fluid channel, above which electrodes are fitted. When a cell flows under this 'bridge', its electrical resistance changes momentarily, and this event is counted. It is important that the count distinguishes between spermatozoa and other particles or cells in the fluid: if other particles are included the count will be unreliable. Segerink added minuscule balls to the fluid to test its selectivity. The method proved to be selective enough to distinguish between the balls and the spermatozoa. White blood cells were also distinguished by the chip. The number of white blood cells tells us something about sperm quality and so this is important additional information for the gynaecologist.

Activity and shape

Concentration is not the only indicator of sperm quality. Spontaneous activity -- also known as motility -- and the shape of the spermatozoa are also important factors. Further research will need to establish whether these two quality characteristics can be measured in a similar manner, so that a compact device can be developed in which a chip can be inserted for single use. The user will only be able to see that the test has been completed successfully; the gynaecologist will inform him of the actual results personally.

Loes Segerink developed the 'fertility chip' in Prof. Albert van den Berg's BIOS Lab-on-a-Chip research group. This group is part of the University of Twente's MESA+ Institute for Nanotechnology. The research is financed by Technology Foundation STW.

The publication 'On-chip determination of spermatozoa concentration using electrical impedance measurements' by Loes Segerink, Ad Sprenkels, Paul ter Braak, Istvan Vermes and Albert van den Berg, has been published online in the form of an Advance Publication, and will appear in the scientific journal Lab on a Chip in the near future.

SOURCE:SCIENCEDAILY

New Study: Innovative Technique Allows Male Cancer Survivors Sterile From Treatment To Father Children

2010-01-15T17:07:00.000-08:00

Men who were previously deemed sterile due to aggressive cancer treatments may still be able to biologically father children according to a new study published in the journal, Bone Marrow Transplantation.

The study's lead author, Paul Turek, MD, former professor and endowed chair at the University of California San Francisco and founder of The Turek Clinic, pioneered the technique, called FNA Sperm Mapping, that is able to discover pockets of viable sperm in the testes. The sperm can then be extracted with minimally invasive procedures and used for in vitro fertilization and single sperm injection.

"This advance in medicine has been a long time in the making, but we have reached a point where a critical mass of physicians believe in and are using sperm mapping as a state-of-the-art tool to help couples conceive," said Dr. Turek, a men's reproductive health expert. "Sperm mapping offers men who are 'sterile' new hope for fatherhood." The study, "Paternity after directed collection of testicular sperm for in vitro fertilization after BMT for hematological malignancies," documented two novel cases of men who had received high does of chemotherapy and bone marrow transplantation. The men had previously been diagnosed and treated for hemotologic cancers (chronic myelogenous leukemia and Hodgkin's disease) and later, as survivors, desired to father children.

The men were initially found to have no sperm in their ejaculate, a condition known as azoospermia, a finding that occurs more than 70 percent of cancer survivors after bone marrow transplantation. After undergoing the testis sperm mapping technique, small pockets of sperm were discovered. With assisted reproduction using these sperm, both successfully fathered healthy children. In previously published research, investigators reported a 65 percent success rate in finding sperm in the testis of patients with azoospermia after chemotherapy for both benign and malignant disease.
However, the cases currently reported involve men who received much higher doses of chemotherapy that are typically associated with bone marrow transplants. And despite the use of assisted reproduction in chemotherapy-exposed sperm, no increase in birth defect rates have been noted. Dr. Turek notes, however, that for men who need radiation and chemotherapy for cancer treatment, sperm banking prior to the therapy remains the single best way to preserve their reproductive potential.

"Patients undergoing cancer treatments need to be informed of the good news on the other side," Dr. Turek states. "There are sophisticated and effective ways to help men become fathers after the storm of cancer treatment has passed." About Sperm Mapping Testis sperm mapping, also known as FNA Mapping, was pioneered by Dr. Turek 13 years ago. The procedure is a breakthrough, minimally invasive reproductive treatment for men found to be sterile from genetic or other causes of infertility.

Sperm mapping involves the use of fine needle aspiration (FNA) to take small tissue samples nonsurgically from 15 designated - or mapped - areas of each testicle under local anesthesia in 30 minutes.

Source:The Turek Clinic

HMC doctors find best treatment for male infertility

2010-01-12T16:21:00.000-08:00

DOHA: Microsurgery is found to be the best procedure to treat infertility in men according to doctors at the Hamad Medical corporation. The Urology Depart at HMC is using some of the most advanced microsurgical procedures to successfully treat sterility in male patients in Qatar.

A study on 298 infertile patients over a period of five years has revealed that ‘Microsurgery’ is the best procedure to treat male infertility in patients, who are afflicted by ‘Varicocele’, which is the main cause for infertility in 40 percent of the patients.
A paper on comparative study of Open, Laparoscopic and Microsurgical approaches to treat male infertility conducted by doctors and specialist at Urology department was selected as the Best Article for 2008, as part of the of Best Publication Award event at Medical Research Centre, HMC.
With world-wide statistics revealing 10 to15 percent of male population suffering from infertility of some sorts, the Urology department at HMC has pioneered the use of microsurgical varicocelectomy to treat male infertility, which has led to increased pregnancy rate in infertile couples.
“The microsurgery procedure is a day surgery not requiring hospitalisation and has several advantages over open technique and laparoscopy. There is no hydrocele formation, a lower incidence of recurrent varicocele, and better improvement in sperm count and motility,” said Dr Abdulla Al Ansari, Consultant Urologist, who has contributed immensely to the comparative study conducted at HMC to treat male infertility.
The successful mastering of microsurgical procedure to treat male infertility at HMC has led to an increased demand by patients from GCC countries such as KSA, UAE, Oman etc, for HMC services.
“HMC infertility clinic is now benchmarked against some of the most advanced medical facilities world-wide. We at the Urology department have now disease specific sub-specialties to deal with patients and cases”, stated Dr Sami S Al Said, Consultant Urologist and Andrologist, HMC while receiving the award.
The study conducted by Urology department on male infertility has been published in one of the most reputed international journals, claimed Dr Al Hareth M Al Khater, Chairman, Medical Research Centre, HMC.
“The Medical Research Centre at HMC was established in 1998. In 2009, we have received almost 200 proposals for research and 100 have been approved by our scientific and ethics committees. 40 research papers submitted by HMC doctors have already been published or accepted for publication this year in various international journals. Some of the medical research proposals are also funded by Qatar National Research Fund under the aegis of Qatar Foundation,” Dr. Al Hareth said.
SOURCE: BIOMED.COM

Hope For Men With Nonobstructive Infertility

2009-12-04T23:41:00.000-08:00

It has been thought that men with non-obstructive azoospermia (NOA), a lack of sperm in the semen not caused by an obstruction within the reproductive system, are poor candidates for IVF. Now, researchers writing in the open access journal Reproductive Biology and Endocrinology have shown that sperm from men with NOA and obstructive azoospermia (OA) are equally capable of producing embryos. Nina Desai led a team of researchers from the Cleveland Clinic Foundation who carried out an in-depth analysis of intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) using frozen sperm taken from the testes of 44 men with OA and 17 men with NOA. They found that, although fertilization rates were slightly improved in the OA group, there were no significant differences in implantation rates or clinical pregnancy rates. According to Desai, "The high implantation rate per embryo transferred and the resultant live births attest to the quality of embryos being produced with both types of surgically retrieved sperm". In addition to evaluating the feasibility of NOA sperm, the researchers were also able to study paternal effect on genomic activation. One of the earliest morphologic indicators of embryonic genome activation is increased cell-to-cell adherence at the 8-cell stage, leading to compaction. Desai said, "Interestingly, we found that embryonic compaction was similar in all three groups. These results suggest that zygotic activation is independent of sperm origin and type of azoospermia".

SOURCE: MEDICALNEWSTODAY

INTERNATIONAL EVENT AT QUEENS FOCUSES ON MALE FERTILITY

2009-11-21T01:34:00.000-08:00

Male infertility and tackling falling birth rates across Europe will be among the topics addressed at this year's British Andrology Society's annual conference at Queen's University in Belfast. World leaders in the field of andrology - the study of male reproduction - will meet at Queen's this week (Thursday and Friday) to discuss the latest developments in the field of fertility including the potential to create artificial sperm from stem cells.

The conference organiser, Professor Sheena Lewis from the Centre of Public Health in the University's School of Medicine, Dentistry and Biomedical Sciences, says research into male fertility is vastly underfunded. Professor Lewis said: "Male infertility is now a public health issue. Infertility affects one in six couples around Europe and the male partner is responsible for 40% of these problems. "DNA damage to sperm is a major cause of male infertility. "We know sperm DNA damage is closely associated with all fertility check points and also longer times to get pregnant and increased pregnancy loss."MORE AT… http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/171471.php

Chemical Cocktail in Consumer Products Destroys Male Fertility

2009-09-28T17:07:00.000-07:00

Hormone-disrupting chemicals found in a variety of consumer products are destroying male reproductive health, according to a report released by the nonprofit CHEM Trust.

An increasing number of widely used chemicals are being exposed as endocrine disruptors, many of them ingredients in plastics, cosmetics, cleaning products and even food. Most of these simulate the action of the female sex hormone estrogen.

According to report author Richard Sharpe of the Medical Research Council, long-term exposure to a wide variety of these chemicals is probably to blame, at least in part, for rising incidence of a condition known as Testicular Dysgenisis Syndrome (TDS). Exposure to endocrine disruptors can “feminize” male children even in the womb, he said, by blocking the activity of the male sex hormone testosterone.

TDS refers to a collection of observed disorders of the male reproductive system, including reduced sperm counts, malformed penis and testicular cancer.
While exposure to one endocrine disruptor might not have a great effect, Sharpe said, there are so many different chemicals out there that their cumulative results must be taken into account.
"Because it is the summation of effect of hormone-disrupting chemicals that is critical, and the number of such chemicals that humans are exposed to is considerable, this provides the strongest possible incentive to minimize human exposure to all relevant hormone disruptors, especially women planning pregnancy, as it is obvious that the higher the exposure the greater the risk," he said."Chemicals that have been shown to act together to affect male reproductive health should have their risks assessed together," said Elizabeth Salter Green of the CHEM Trust.

"Currently that is not the case, and unfortunately chemicals are looked at on an individual basis. Therefore, government assurances that exposures are too low to have any effect just do not hold water because regulators do not take into account the additive actions of hormone disrupting chemicals.""It is high time that public health policy is based on good science and that regulatory authorities have health protection, rather than industry protection, uppermost in mind," she said.

Gene for male infertility found

2009-09-11T18:07:00.000-07:00

A GENE more common in men with a shortage of healthy sperm points to a new way to treat some forms of male infertility.

Mohamed Benahmed and colleagues at the University of Lyon in France have discovered that a gene variant that increases production of a protein called tumour necrosis factor- is more common in men with a low sperm count or in men whose sperm lack healthy movement.

The team reckons TNF- lowers sperm count by boosting levels of a hormone that stimulates sperm production only when its levels fall. TNF- may also spark production of substances that damage existing sperm. Drugs that block TNF- may treat these types of infertility.

SOURCE: NEWSCIENTIST.COM

SCIENTISTS CREATE TEST TUBE SPERM

2009-08-22T14:37:00.000-07:00

Breakthrough offers hope of finding cure for male infertility

[Dr. Karim Nayernia]

Scientists have created human sperm in the laboratory for the first time. The extraordinary development, which until a few years ago belonged in the realms of science fiction, raises hopes that infertile men may one day be able to father their own biological children.

The sperm were created in a test tube, from stem cells derived from a five-day-old male embryo. The advance raises ethical questions over the safety of the procedure and the threat it poses to the future role of men. It was also challenged by experts who

claimed the sperm-like cells produced in the experiment were not genuine sperm.

If the finding is confirmed, a single male embryo could, in theory, yield a stem-cell line which when stored could provide an unlimited supply of sperm. Once the stem-cell line was established, there would be no further reproductive need for men. In a briefing on the research, the scientists at Newcastle University and the NorthEast England Stem Cell Institute, led by Professor Karim Nayernia, raise the question of whether their discovery means "the end of men".

They point out that the stem cells from which the sperm were made could only be derived from a male embryo – one containing a Y (male) chromosome – so at least one male would be required.
"However, researchers believe that the issue does need to be debated and legislated for," they said. "As work progresses and results improve at Newcastle and elsewhere it may, in theory, be possible to develop sperm from embryonic stem cell lines which have been stored."

Professor Nayernia said:"In theory it would be possible [to dispense with men], but only if you want to produce a population all the same size and shape [because they have the same male genetic origin]. Personally I cannot see human reproduction as purely a biological process. It has human, emotional, psychological, social and ethical aspects, too. We are doing this research to help infertile men, not to replace a reproductive procedure."

The breakthrough was achieved using stem cells derived from a human embryo which were first developed into germ line stem cells – with half the number of chromosomes – and then prompted to produce sperm which were "fully mature and functional", despite being made in a petri dish rather than the testes of a sexually mature man. The results are reported in the journal Stem Cells and Development.

In a parallel but incomplete experiment, the same group of researchers are creating stem cells out of skin cells from which they have produced sperm, with the same genetic make-up as the skin cells from which they are derived.This would allow infertile men to produce their own biological children, using only their skin cells. Professor Nayernia said the results of this research were "promising" and added: "We hope in a few months to publish that work as well."

However, efforts to produce sperm from female stem cells failed. It had been thought the technique might allow lesbian couples to have their own biological children but the researchers say the genes on the Y (male) chromosome are essential to sperm maturation.
Three years ago, Professor Nayernia led scientists at the University of Gottingen in Germany who became the first to produce viable sperm from mouse embryonic stem cells which were used to produce seven live offspring. However, the baby mice died shortly after birth.

The latest discovery is a further step on the way to finding a cure for male infertility. Under current legislation, researchers are banned from using sperm (or eggs) produced in the laboratory – known as in-vitro derived (IVD) sperm – to treat patients. But it is permitted for research purposes.
"Sperm production takes 15 years in a human and there are thousands of factors that could affect it," said Professor Nayernia. "We can investigate these factors in the laboratory in a matter of months with this technique."
Experts yesterday challenged the Newcastle researchers' claims to have created genuine sperm.

Dr Allan Pacey, senior lecturer in andrology at the University of Sheffield, said: "As a sperm biologist of 20 years' experience, I am unconvinced from the data presented in this paper that the cells produced ... can be accurately called 'Spermatozoa'."

Azim Surani, a professor of physiology and reproduction at the University of Cambridge, said: "These sperm-like cells made in a dish from embryonic stem cells are a long way from being authentic sperm cells." Professor Robin Lovell Badge, from the National Institute for Medical Research, echoed the academic criticisms, but said: "Despite these drawbacks, it may be that the authors have made some progress in obtaining sperm from human embryonic stem cells in vitro.
"This will be very important for research and ultimately, although definitely not yet, for fertility treatments."

Professor Nayernia said his research was submitted as "proof of principle" which needed confirmation by further studies. "Our intention was to open up new avenues of research," he said. "It seems unreasonable to criticise our work on the basis that we have not done more."

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, which regulates research, has estimated that it will be at least five or 10 years before eggs of sperm could be produced which could potentially be used in treatment.
Before laboratory-produced sperm could be used to make babies for couples who are infertile, the 2008 Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act would have to be changed.

Sperm: The facts
* It takes 10 weeks to make a sperm in the testes.
* Once produced they are stored for about a fortnight.
* If they are not ejaculated they are broken down and reabsorbed.
* A healthy male can produce 70 to 150 million sperm a day.
* A teaspoon can hold 200 to 500 million sperm.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT.CO.UK

Foods that will increase the quality and quantity of sperm

2009-07-30T00:40:00.002-07:00

Although there is no scientific evidence to prove any of the following claims that are believed to improve the taste of your semen, they are nevertheless widely believed among drinkers and squirters alike.Believe it or not, many of the things that affect body odor are believed to affect the taste of semen as well.

For instance, alcohol and coffee are believed to give semen a bitter, pungent taste. There are many ingredients composing semen, and its makeup is the same from man to man. Here are a few of the constituent elements: vitamin C, calcium, chlorine, cholesterol, citric acid, creatine, fructose, lactic acid, magnesium, nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, sodium, vitamin B12, and zinc. So what effect will all this have on her waistline? Well, not much of an effect at all. The caloric content of the average ejaculate is estimated to be approximately 5 to 25 calories -- hardly the most fattening meal.

As well, cigarettes, garlic, onions, broccoli, and cauliflower are also believed to alter the taste of your love juice. The cigarettes need no explanation; you're inhaling fire, let's get real. But because the aforementioned foods tend to have a distinct odor, it's believed that they will affect the way you taste.

If you're dehydrated, pig out on spicy foods or are taking medication, these factors may also contribute to an uninviting flavor. So maybe you should take it easy on Mexican delights and start downing water like there's no tomorrow.

What To Eat/Drink:

Plums Oranges Lemons Limes Cilantro Spearmint Grapefruit Green tea Beer Pineapple Mangoes Chamomile tea

What To Avoid:

Broccoli Brussels Sprouts Spices Coffee Chocolate Cigarettes Asparagus Chemically processed liquor Onions Garlic Dairy Products Red meat Considering most guys are avid meat eaters, keep in mind that red meat apparently makes semen taste more acidic. Hmm, nothing like the taste of acid to end off a wonderful night of sexual fun.To sweeten up your inner load, drink plenty of pineapple juice, and eat bananas and papaya. Their sweetness results in yours. And of course, lest we forget that parsley can do wonders for men worldwide -- it eliminates body odor, freshens breath and improves the taste of seminal fluid. Fruits like kiwi, watermelon, celery, and pineapple are all said to make semen taste lighter. Beer and coffee are believed to have something of an opposite effect, and could leave her with a bitter taste in the mouth. Alkaline-based foods like meat and fish produce a buttery taste, while acidic fruits (cranberries, blueberries and plums) produce a pleasant, sugary flavor. Most liqueurs will do the same, while dairy products can make for a foul taste because of their high bacterial putrefaction levels. Always keep in mind that everyone has a distinct taste and even if you do all these things, she might still find the taste of your fluid repulsive. But if she's more than willing and able to sacrifice for the greater good, then have her down a mint before she makes her way down south.The mint will serve to hinder the flavor of your semen and will simultaneously provide you with indescribable sensations.

A lot of guys would love it if they could make like one of the characters in Scary Movie and ejaculate so much that they plaster their girlfriends against the ceiling. And although that won't likely be happening anytime soon, it's believed that wheat germ increases seminal output. Bon appétit.

Amino acids, if taken regularly, are generally believed to increase ejaculate fluid. On the other hand, zinc seems to improve both the amount of sperm produced as well as the sperm's ability to move spontaneously and independently. Together with amino acids, this will increase normal sperm count and volume significantly. Amino acids are believed to increase ejaculate fluid (not the amount of actual sperm necessarily) if taken regularly. Some amino acids include:L-ARGININE HCLStudies show sperm and semen volume doubles, fertility improves (even among men with low sperm counts or poor sperm motility), and sperm health and activity increase with supplementation.
Arginine is found in high concentrations in nuts and seeds like peanuts and almonds. It can also be found in chocolate and raisins. Some Natural Sources: Nuts, sunflower seeds, sesame seeds, chocolate, popcorn, raisins, brown rice, carob, gelatin desserts, oatmeal, whole wheat bread, and protein rich foods.

L-LYSINEResearchers find that this amino acids plus zinc increases sperm produced, stimulates testosterone production, and improves semen quality.EPIMEDIUM SAGITTATUMSometimes called "horny goat weed," this botanical boosts libido and testosterone levels for greater sperm production for a strong ejaculation.
ZINC OXIDEHas been shown to increase number of sperm and sperm motility by 80% to 200% by aiding testosterone synthesis.

L-CARNITINE. This amino acid is found in high concentrations in healthy sperm. Proven to significantly increase the percentage of highly motile sperm.

CATUABA BARKBrazilian herb that strengthens the libido, and nourishes the entire male reproductive system.

PUMPKIN SEED supports prostate health and hormonal production. While they may not readily increase sperm volume, they do enhance prostate health and testosterone production.

MACALegendary South American botanical proven to promote libido, potency and energy.Ginseng Yohimbe barkVitamin C, EMagnesium

Zinc has been shown to improve both the amount of sperm you produce and the sperm's ability to move spontaneously and independently. Coupled with amino acids (see above), this will increase sperm volume significantly.(Butter's note: Not as miraculous as they make it sound, but regular zinc intake (50mgs a day) does increase quantity somewhat.)Whatever a pill company's claims are, you can probably do just as well with zinc and lecithin supplements. (Use zinc supplements in moderation; too much zinc intake can be dangerous.) For some guys, these nutrients do have a noticeable effect on ejaculation volume, and they're a lot cheaper and easier to get.
In general, stay away from mail-order pills sold by less-than-reputable companies; you really don't know what's in them, and their claims are almost always untrue or at least greatly exaggerated.

PC Exercises:While Kegel exercises can help you last longer, they can also aid in increasing sperm volume. There are a host of exercises you can do to keep your penis in great shape and shoot like a champion.

Frequency of sexual activity also contributes to volume -- although only to a certain degree. If you abstain for a day or two, you'll certainly produce more sperm than you would ejaculating every few hours. But any longer than this one- to two-day timeframe, and you won't see much of a difference, as semen reservoirs will have stopped building up a supply.

Consistency of semen isn't very consistent; you've probably noticed that the thickness of your ejaculate can vary from day to day. This is because the quality of the fluid is very susceptible to a number of factors. Diet, exercise and frequency of sex can all dictate how thick or watery your emissions are, as can the tightness of the clothes that you wear (tight clothing will increase body temperature and can thus impact sperm motility.
While there is a lack of supporting scientific evidence, a number of ingredients are said to help thicken up semen. Because of their protein content, egg whites and gelatin are often recommended. Wheat germ, omega-3 oils, selenium, and zinc are all also believed to improve consistency.

A healthy balance of nutrients is important for maintaining vascular health as well, which improves your ability to achieve and maintain erections. There isn't a need to go popping extra vitamins if you are already eating a diet rich in nutrients, particulary from fruits and vegetables. Essential fatty acids are found in certain kinds of fish (like salmon) and nuts.Celery is one of food products known to have great properties for sexual stimulation. It contains androsterone, an odor free hormone which is very inviting for women. Raw celery is the best way to increase that desire. Oysters are rich in zinc and are know to increase sperm and testosterone production. It contains dopamine which increases the sexual desire. Bananas, Avocado and Almond or other nuts are some of the other food products which help in this matter.

Eat Nutritious Food - Diet that's low in fat, and high in protein, vegetables, and whole grains is good for your health and for your sperm. Avoid bitter, astringent and spicy foods.Reduce caffeine intake. Avoid heating of testicles - Wear loose, cotton boxer shorts, Avoid hot baths and saunas.

Lose any excess weight, which tends to cause testosterone/oestrogen imbalances. Reduce stress levels by learning relaxation techniques - Keep your mind and body healthy by regular practice of YOGA and MEDITATION.

Massage body with herbal oil, which improves blood circulation.

Try supplements - Certain natural supplements promise to increase sperm production.

Make love in the early morning or afternoon. Sperm levels are often highest in the mornings.

EMD Serono launches male fertility education campaign

2009-06-26T07:38:00.000-07:00

EMD Serono is partnering with Men's Health Network on a patient education campaign aimed at raising awareness of male infertility.The effort, dubbed “In The Know: What No One Tells You About Male Fertility,” is launching this week, which is Men's Health Week. The campaign features a 20-page booklet written in conjunction with the Society for the Study of Male Reproduction, a website (www.FertilityLifeLines.com/intheknow) and a PR campaign by Baer Consulting. It's being supported by a satellite media tour, and aimed at reaching couples through health titles and local news outlets. FertilityLifeLines.com is EMD Serono's fertility awareness site, and includes branding for Gonal-f, a hormone treatment indicated for both male and female infertility. Patients can get the booklet by registering at the site or by calling a toll-free number. EMD Serono reps are distributing copies to reproductive endocrinologists, and the company is promoting it online through search engine optimization and banner ads. As part of the effort, EMD Serono and Men's Health Network are touting a survey finding that 45% of men say they would wait a year or more to seek treatment for an infertility problem. Men are much less likely to present than women, said EVP, endocrinology David Stern, and for women in their late 30s and older, time is critical."Some of this is embarassment," said Stern. "It's important to talk about it. It's not something that makes you less manly. It's common and can be treated."About one in eight couples – around 7.3 million Americans -- has trouble conceiving, the company said, and half of those cases have to do with male fertility issues – often easily treatable ones. The campaign grew out of an earlier “girlfriend-to-girlfriend” effort, aimed at women and based on research conducted with Conceive Magazine, that launched last year.

SOURCE: MMONLINE.COM

SSRI ANTIDEPRESSANTS LINKED TO MALE INFERTILITY

2009-06-24T03:41:00.000-07:00

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a warning a few years ago that pregnant women taking the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) antidepressant paroxetine risk giving birth to infants with major birth defects, including heart abnormalities.

Now comes word that the same drug (sold as Paxil, Paxil CR, Seroxat, Pexeva, and generic paroxetine hydrochloride) carries another danger that could keep babies from being born in the first place. A new study just published in the online edition of the journal Fertility and Sterility concludes as many as fifty percent of all men taking the antidepressant could have damaged sperm and compromised fertility.

New York Presbyterian Hospital and Weill Cornell Medical Center researchers followed 35 healthy male volunteers who took paroxetine for five weeks. Then sperm samples from the men were studied using an assay called terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase dUTP nick end labeling (TUNEL) to evaluate whether there were missing pieces of genetic code in the sperm DNA.
This condition, known as DNA fragmentation, is associated with reproductive problems.The results? The percentage of men with abnormal DNA fragmentation soared from less than 10 percent to 50 percent while taking the antidepressant. This is a crucial finding because DNA fragmentation has long been known to correlate with an increased risk of birth defects, poor fertility and unsuccessful pregnancy outcomes -- even when high tech, extraordinarily expensive fertility enhancing techniques such as in vitro fertilization and intracytoplasmic sperm injection are used.

The study, one of the first scientific investigations into the effect of SSRIs on sperm quality, also confirmed that paroxetine impairs sexual function. More than a third of the research subjects reported significant changes in erectile function and about half had difficulty ejaculating.

"It's fairly well known that SSRI antidepressants negatively impact erectile function and ejaculation. This study goes one step further, demonstrating that they can cause a major increase in genetic damage to sperm," Dr. Peter Schlegel, the study's senior author and chairman of the Department of Urology and professor of reproductive medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College, explained in a statement to the media.
"Although this study doesn't look directly at fertility, we can infer that as many as half of men taking SSRIs have a reduced ability to conceive. These men should talk with their physician about their treatment options, including non-SSRI depression medications."The scientists could not identify the exact way the SSRI caused the DNA fragmentation, but the evidence strongly suggests the drug slows sperm as it moves through the male reproductive tract from the testis to the ejaculatory ducts. When this happens, the sluggish sperm grows old and its DNA becomes damaged.

"This is a new concept for how drugs can affect fertility and sperm. In most cases, it was previously assumed that a drug damaged sperm production, so the concept that sperm transport could be affected is novel," Dr. Schlegel stated.The study contains some good news for men currently on Paxil and related drugs who may be concerned about their fertility. All the changes the researchers found appeared to be totally reversible. Specifically, normal levels of sexual function and DNA fragmentation both returned to normal one month after discontinuation of the drug.

SOURCE: NATURALNEWS.COM

Man fathers 'miracle' child using sperm frozen 22 years ago

2009-04-15T15:48:00.000-07:00

A man who had his sperm frozen while suffering leukaemia as a teenager has fathered a child after doctors successfully thawed his sample a record 22 years later.

Chris Biblis was advised to have his sperm frozen before undergoing radiotherapy that would leave him sterile at age 16.
He survived the cancer and at age 38 has become the father of a healthy baby daughter, Stella.

She was conceived after scientists injected a defrosted sperm into an egg from Mr Biblis's wife, Melodie, and implanted it in her uterus.
The 22-year lapse between storage in April 1986 and conception in June 2008 is the longest on record, according to specialists at the US fertility clinic who carried out the procedure.

“From my life being saved to being able to create a life, words just can’t describe where we are now,” Mr Biblis, of Charlotte, North Carolina, told ABC news.

“I’ve got this bundle of joy to appreciate. It’s truly a miracle."
The case is being hailed as an illustration of how far infertility treatment has advanced in the past two decades. The previous record was 21 years.
"We believe this is a world record," said Bonnie Schwab of Vanguard Communications in Colorado, which represents the Charlotte doctors.
Even the thought of freezing sperm was unusual in the 1980s, said Dr. Richard Wing, the Biblises' doctor and founder of the Charlotte fertility clinic.

The couple have five frozen embryos and some of Chris Biblis' remaining frozen sperm in the bank if they want to have more children.

SOURCE: telegraph.co.uk

Gene discovery may lead to male contraceptive

2009-04-06T16:11:00.000-07:00

There is hope on the horizon for infertile men with news of the discovery of gene mutations linked to male infertility possibly leading to a male contraceptive - and new fertility treatments.

WebMD is reporting the mutations discovered make it hard for a gene to make a protein essential for normal sperm movement, possibly inhibiting male fertility.

The gene, called CATSPER1, may well prove a productive avenue for male infertility solutions – while blocking the gene could possibly be a way of creating a male contraceptive say the researchers.

However, don’t hold your breath for a male birth control pill any time soon say the researchers, who published their results in the American Journal of Human Genetics.

SOURCE: NBR.CO.NZ

Ron Duncan: Are endocrine disruptors reducing human sperm count, killing off the species?

2009-02-22T16:36:00.000-08:00

"You have to read this," my brother said. "It shows how the human race is dying out." Dubious, I opened the book that he offered me and stared incredulously at a little-known statistic stating that "average male sperm counts dropped by almost fifty percent between 1938 and 1990." The book was entitled "Our Stolen Future" and was my first introduction to class of chemical compounds known as "endocrine disruptors" and the effect that they are having on our fertility and the fertility of many species across the globe.

The discovery that human sperm counts had been steadily dropping occurred in 1992, when the results of Danish researcher Dr. Niels Skakkebaek's meta-analysis on male fertility was published in the British Medical Journal. Analyzing the findings of every study on sperm count that had occurred since 1930, Dr. Skakkebaek uncovered this surprising trend when he realized the combined evidence of all these studies pointed to an average decline in male sperm count by 1 percent per year. In the aftermath of the publication of these results, countries across the globe tested the sperm counts of their male populations only to find, in many cases, confirmation of Dr. Skakkebaek's conclusions. In the most recent of such studies published last year, Italian researchers at the University of Pisa discovered that the number of active sperm in Italian men has dropped by more than 15 percent in the last 30 years.

Puzzled, scientists were at a loss to account for the trend, until further investigation indicated the decline in fertility rates to be geographically dependent, and thus tied to environmental factors.

Fortunately for Americans, several studies in the mid-1990s revealed sperm counts of American males in New York, L.A. and Minnesota to be increasing, while those of their European counterparts were moving in the opposite direction.

When alarming data on animal infertility emerged that coincided with the human trend, scientists began to look to endocrine disruptors as the likely culprit.

Endocrine disruptors are so-named because they disrupt our endocrine system, a system that produces and regulates our hormones, controlling our body's growth, metabolism, and sexual function and development. Endocrine disruptors act as synthetic hormones, throwing off our hormone levels by mimicking or blocking the natural hormones in our bodies. Although most research has focused on endocrine disruptors that imitate the female sex hormone estrogen, others are found to simulate testosterone, our metabolic hormones and more.

The adverse effects that endocrine disruptors can have on human fertility first came to light in the 1970s as a result of the scandal surrounding the pregnancy drug diethylstilbestrol, or DES. In 1938, when scientists discovered that the body mistook DES for the hormone estrogen, it was hailed as the new wonder drug. Believing the more estrogen the better, doctors throughout the country in the 1940s, '50s and '60s began prescribing DES to their pregnant patients to prevent miscarriages and other pregnancy complications.

Ironically, DES had the opposite effect, as women who had taken DES during pregnancy were more likely to miscarry, have premature children or have babies who died during infancy. However, it was not until the late 1960s and the early 1970s, when a rash of young women began dying of a hitherto rare form of clear-cell vaginal cancer, that the true danger of DES was exposed. It turns out that these young women, most in their late teens and early twenties, all had one thing in common: their mothers had taken DES during pregnancy at a critical time for their development. Other female "DES babies" were found to have fertility problems, including misshaped sexual organs. In males exposed to DES in the womb, the consequences, though not as clear-cut, have been revealed by some studies to include higher rates of underdeveloped testes, stunted penises, undescended testicles, and abnormal sperm.

While doctors no longer prescribe DES, the disturbing truth is that all of us, including, of course, pregnant women, continue to be exposed to endocrine disruptors in our environment, and to ingest them in our food and water. Plasticizers such as bisphenol-A or BPA, found in plastics labeled with the number 7; pesticides, including DDT; and chemicals such as PCBs, formerly used in coolants, lubricants, paints and sealants, are among the endocrine disruptors present in our environment that mimic estrogen in the human body.
These compounds are so pervasive that they have been found in varying levels throughout the world, with high concentrations discovered in seals, polar bears and other marine life currently experiencing fertility problems in areas as remote as Svalbard in the Arctic Circle.

In other words, not only are these substances pervasive, spreading easily across the globe, but they are long-lasting, the evidence being that DDT and PCBs were outlawed decades ago, but still persist in our environment, threatening our own health and the health of other species. Moreover, the number and variety of endocrine disruptors in our environment is unknown since the FDA and other government regulatory agencies to do not test the more than 2,000 chemicals that come on to the market each year to determine if they are endocrine disruptors before releasing them upon the unsuspecting public.

Those at greatest risk to the potential ill effects of endocrine disruptors are fetuses and newborn babies because of the important role that hormones play in development. A prime example is the function of hormones in sexual development. All babies, regardless of whether they have XX chromosomes girls or XY chromosomes boys do not begin to develop their gender until around the seventh week of life for males or the third or fourth month females. Until the time of that important transformation, every fetus is equipped with a pair of unisex gonads that have the potential to transform into either the male or female sexual organs. For boy babies, at the seventh week, the Y chromosome signals the development of the unisex gonads into testes and the rest of the process of gender development is directed by the male hormones produced by those organs. For females, the third or fourth month is when the male-potential Wolffian ducts whither and disappear and, as time goes on, estrogen helps guide the proper development of the ovaries. Things can go wrong if hormone levels are off. For example, male babies that don't receive a strong dose of testosterone at the right time will become hermaphrodites or their testicles will not descend.

Because proper sexual development, particularly in males, is reliant on receiving the correct levels of hormones at a precise moment, many scientists are concerned about the impact of fetal exposure to hormone mimicking elevated hormone levels or blocking lowered hormone levels endocrine disruptors. It has been found that even small doses of synthetic hormones can have serious and lasting consequences. As a result, it is recommended that pregnant women in particular limit their exposure to these harmful substances as much as possible.

Here are some tips for avoiding endocrine disruptors:

* Eat organic food and consume most of your protein from vegetable sources. Because endocrine disruptors "bioaccumulate" in animals, eating animal fat including fish can expose you to higher doses of these chemicals.

* Avoid foods that have been exposed to plastics and don't cook your food in plastic containers, which can leach plasticizers into foods when heated.

*Avoid drinking from plastic water bottles, especially those labeled with the number 7 use stainless steel instead, and limit consumption of canned foods. There is a plastic coating inside can products that reduces metallic taste, but has been shown to leach plasticizers into food.

* Never feed your baby using a plastic bottle, many are plastic No. 7, which contains BPA; always opt for glass bottles.

* Install a filter on your taps and showerhead to strain out pesticides and other chemical compounds from your water.

* Avoid dioxin also an endocrine disruptor by limiting exposure to smoke, animal fats and chlorinated products.

* Limit exposure to chemicals in general.

So, is the human race dying out? The good news is, not yet. Look around; we have 6.7 billion people in the world! Even with the reduced male sperm count, men still have a sufficient amount, on average, of fully functional sperm for fertility. An adequate sperm density is considered to be around 20 million per milliliter, and even those Italians in the study cited above had a density of 60 million per milliliter.

However, the statistics surrounding fertility and the effects of endocrine disruptors should serve as a warning signal. If we don't take serious action to combat the problem, my brother may end up being proved right.

SOURCE: mercurynews.com

Men Must Contend With a Biological Clock, Too

2009-02-18T16:10:00.000-08:00

Older males face higher risk of fathering children with medical problems, research finds

It wasn't all that long ago that any suggestion that a man had a "biological clock" like a woman, and should father children sooner rather than later, would have been given short scientific shrift.
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Not anymore. Today, a growing body of evidence suggests that as men get older, fertility can and does decline, while the chances of fathering a child with serious birth defects and medical problems increase.
Some studies have linked higher rates of serious health problems such as autism and schizophrenia in children born to men as young as their mid-40s.

And doctors and researchers are busy trying to figure out how men who choose to delay fatherhood -- either by choice or necessity, such as a lack of a partner -- can offset the effects of their biological clocks as those clocks wind down.

Interestingly, problems with reduced fertility can start long before middle age, said Dr. Harry Fisch, one of the pioneers in the field in male fertility and director of the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons' Male Reproductive Center, in New York City.

"We know after age 30, testosterone levels decline about 1 percent per year," said Fisch, author of the book The Male Biological Clock.
Research done at the University of Washington has found that "as men age, DNA damage occurs to their sperm," said Dr. Narendra P. Singh, a research associate professor in the department of bioengineering, who co-authored a study on the subject.

Several other studies point to problems in the offspring of older fathers, as well as older men experiencing fertility problems.
For instance, Fisch and his colleagues found that if a woman and a man were both older than age 35 at the time of conception, the father's age played a significant role in the prevalence of Down syndrome. And this effect was most detectable if the woman was 40 or older -- the incidence of Down syndrome was about 50 percent attributable to the sperm.
Other researchers have found that children born to fathers 45 or older are more likely to have poor social skills, and that children born to men 55 and older are more likely to have bipolar disorder than those born to men 20 to 24 years of age at the time of conception.

On other fronts, researchers at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City found that children of men aged 40 or older were about six times more likely to have autism. Still another study found that the children of fathers who were 50 or older when they were born were almost three times more likely to be diagnosed with schizophrenia.

Fisch is now focusing much of his attention on encouraging men to assess if their biological clock is ticking faster than it should. For instance, men who are overweight or obese tend to have more fertility problems than healthier men.

"It turns out that if you are too heavy, you have a lower sperm count," he said, adding that excess body fat causes testosterone levels to decline. The good news: Losing weight helps them return to normal.
Singh advises older men who want to become fathers to pay attention to lifestyle issues and practice healthy habits that will, in turn, keep their sperm healthy. That particularly means no smoking and no overuse of alcohol, he said.

Both Fisch and Singh said they don't think there's a "cutoff" point for fatherhood. And they said it's difficult to pinpoint the "ideal" age to father a child, especially since many couples today are marrying later and delaying starting a family.
But Fisch did say, "The sooner, the better."

SOURCE: healthusnews.com

Drinking pomegranate juice may improve male fertility

2009-01-25T23:33:00.000-08:00

A new study has shown that drinking pomegranate juice regularly may improve sperm health.

The study, which was conducted by researchers at Turkey’s Firat University and published in the journal Clinical Nutrition, examined 28 male Wistar rats to see if the so-called ‘superfood’ would help their fertility reports health website NaturalNews.

The rats were divided into four groups and given either 1ml of water, 0.75ml of water mixed with 0.25ml of pomegranate juice, 0.5ml of each or 1ml of pomegranate juice once a day over a seven-week period, after which the researchers tested the rats’ sperm.

Results were positive: compared to those drinking water only, the rats drinking the concentrated pomegranate juice showed a 48.5% reduction in their blood levels of a reactive chemical called malondialdehyde (MDA) that can damage sperm production.

Even more encouragingly, they also showed a 63.5% decrease in the levels of MDA in their sperm.
Researchers found the rats that drank the concentrated pomegranate juice had “increased spermatogenic cell density, epididymal sperm concentration, sperm motility and decreased abnormal sperm rate”.However, they noted it was only the concentrated juice, and not the diluted versions, that made a positive difference.
This isn’t the first study to show the potential health benefits pomegranate juice offers for men.

In 2007, a study published in the International Journal of Impotence Research reported some success in using pomegranate juice as a way of managing erectile dysfunction.
A three-year UCLA study also found a daily dose of pomegranate juice helps stabilise prostate-specific antigen (PSA) levels in prostate cancer sufferers.

SOURCE: nbr.co.nz

New evidence that river pollution could be causing male fertility problems

2009-01-19T16:46:00.000-08:00

Testosterone-blocking chemicals have been found in UK rivers for the first time in new research that strengthens the link between water pollution and rising male fertility problems.

Anti-androgens, that are found in a number of medicines including cancer treatments and pesticides used in agriculture, were found in 30 rivers across England.
The group of chemicals can block the male hormone and therefore reduce male fertility.

Scientists found male fish are already being affected and warned that it could also be contributing to a reduction in human sperm counts, that have been falling in the last fifty years.
In the past the contraceptive pill has been blamed for "feminising" male fish but levels would have to be extremely high to affect humans.
However anti-androgens have been proven to affect humans in small measures and provide a much stronger link between river pollution and male fertility.

The three year study by Brunel University, the Universities of Exeter and Reading and the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology looked at more than 1,000 fish in rivers across the UK.
Previous studies have already shown that the female sex hormone oestrogen is causing the feminisation of fish and in some cases can lead to male fish changing sex.

The chemical, found in the contraceptive pill and some industrial chemicals, enters rivers via sewage works.
The new study shows that anti-androgens are also causing male fertility problems in a "double whammy" for the fish.

Senior author Professor Charles Tyler of the University of Exeter said the study showed that a much wider range of chemicals than previously thought could be affecting male wildlife and human health.
"Our research shows that a much wider range of chemicals than we previously thought is leading to hormone disruption in fish.
This means that the pollutants causing these problems are likely to be coming from a wide variety of sources.
Our findings also strengthen the argument for the cocktail of chemicals in our water leading to hormone disruption in fish, and contributing to the rise in male reproductive problems.
There are likely to be many reasons behind the rise in male fertility problems in humans, but these findings could reveal one, previously unknown, factor."

Prof Tyler said there was a lack of evidence to prove a small amount of oestrogen found in river water could affect human fertility, however studies on rats and mice have shown a small amount of anti-androgens can affect male fertility in mammals.

"There is good evidence for more problems in male reproductivty in human males in the last fifty or sixty years," he said. "The anti-androgens are possibly a contributing factor."
The study will now concentrate on where the anti-androgens are coming from and the affect on human health.

Lead author on the research paper Dr Susan Jobling at Brunel University's Institute for the Environment, said the group would be working with regulators like the Environment Agency to consider whether levels of the pollutant need to be controlled in order to protect health.

She said: "We have identified a new group of chemicals in our study on fish, but do not know where they are coming from. A principal aim of our work is now to identify the source of these pollutants and work with regulators and relevant industry to test the effects of a mixture of these chemicals and the already known environmental estrogens and help protect environmental health."

SOURCE: telegraph.co.uk

Vietnam has made significant progress in infertility treatment

2009-01-09T15:59:00.000-08:00

Right: Luu Ngoc Mai, the first ever baby in Vietnam born from fertilsation with cultured spermatids at the Hanoi-based Military Hospital's Embryo Technology Center and Doctor Quan Huang Lam, head of the center.

Recent achievements in infertility treatment in
Vietnam have not only given fresh hope to childless couples, but also earned the country international recognition, according to local experts.

In the last week of December, the Hanoi-based Military Hospital’s Embryo Technology Center announced its success in culturing spermatids, saying that a baby had been born and six were expected to be born this year using the method.

Although the success rate now stands at 10 percent, it is notable that Vietnam is the first country in Asia to succeed in developing the technique, Vietnam News recently quoted Quan Hoang Lam - head of the center as saying.

Initiated by Doctor Tesarik J. from Turkey in 2001, the new technique helps men who cannot produce sperms.
Men can have their spermatids – the cells that become spermatozoon (sperms) – grown into sperms in culture medium within 24 hours and then injected into their wives’ ovum for fertilization.

Leading IVM nation
“Vietnam is one of the five countries, including Canada, Japan, the Republic of Korea and Italy, which are leading in developing in vitro maturation (IVM),” Ho Chi Minh City Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility Association (HOSREM) General Secretary Dr. Ho Manh Tuong told Lao Dong in a recent interview.

Since the first IVM baby was born in 2007, it is estimated that Vietnam has introduced 4 to 5 percent of some 500 IVM babies that are delivered internationally, he says.

“The number of IVM babies in Vietnam has increased sharply thanks to the rather high success rate,” Tuong adds.
According to HORSEM statistics, around 50 pregnancies so far have been achieved using IVM, including more than 10 cases of twins.
Following the success of the Vietnamese program, local scientists and experts have been invited to report their IVM application at international conferences, including the first European IVM meeting held in Monza, Italy, last month, Tuong says.

The association has also been invited to take part in a multi-center study on IVM babies in the world headed by Professor R. Cheng Chian and Professor Seang Lintan of McGill University in Montreal, Canada, he says.
During IVM, immature eggs, or oocytes, are retrieved from the ovary, then matured in the laboratory before being fertilized and implanted in the womb.

The method almost halves the cost of In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) and has a shorter time of 10 days instead of four weeks.
Moreover, it does not imply a potentially fatal side-effect of injections given to stimulate egg production prior to retrieval, like the IVF. The side-effect, which is very rare, is known as the Ovarian Hyperstimulation Syndrome.

While new achievements are being recorded and newer techniques applied, Vietnam already has a solid base in IVF development, experts say.

The country marked its first achievement in infertility treatment when three babies were born in 1998 using the IVF technology.
Over the past 10 years, 10 IVF centers have been established nationwide and these have introduced nearly 5,000 IVF babies in Vietnam, Tuong told the Sai Gon Giai Phong newspaper recently.

Since 2004, Vietnam has also conducted IVF courses for foreign students from countries like Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia and Myanmar.
Source: Lao Dong, SGGP

Baby girl born using frozen sperm from father killed by cancer FOUR years ago

2008-12-19T15:59:00.000-08:00

Her father couldn't be there when she was born. And he won't be able to watch her grow up.

But Jaimie-Rose Roberts, born four years after his death, will still be a Daddy's girl.
James Roberts, who died from cancer at 33, had always dreamed of adding to his family.

As he battled his illness, he and his wife Lisa, who already had a son together, decided to have his sperm frozen to ensure they could have more children.
Joy: Lisa Roberts proudly hugs Jaimie-Rose, conceived through her dead husband's frozen sperm

Lisa and husband James Roberts

Last week, Mrs Roberts fulfilled their dream on her own after a course of IVF treatment that doctors had warned had only a 20 per cent chance of working.
"She's amazing," she said as she held her week-old daughter in her arms.
"I hope James is looking down on us with a smile on his face.
"I wish he was here to see her because I know he would be so happy.
"She's just beautiful.
"I can't believe that something so lovely can come from something so tragic."

The couple's son, Cameron, is now seven.
He is delighted to be a big brother and suggested his little sister's name as a tribute to their father.

Lisa and James Roberts had been married for six years when he was diagnosed with a cancerous leg tumour.
They were warned that treatment would leave him infertile so he had his sperm frozen for future use and signed over ownership to his wife.

"He was really pleased about the medical technology to store his sperm for us to have more babies in the future," Mrs Roberts said."James always wanted a family - he always wanted children, he loved children.

Miracle baby from frozen sperm

2008-12-19T15:52:00.000-08:00

Nick Rafanelli and partner Teresa Kilsby are still in awe that their beautiful daughter Monique Sarah has come into the world against extraordinary odds.
The healthy tot was born from sperm frozen for 21 years – an Australian record.
Now the delighted couple plan to try for two more children from the sperm put away all those years ago.
In 1986, Nick was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and told he might have just 10 months to live.
But he postponed urgent

NICK RAFANELLI, MIRACLE BABY FATHER

chemotherapy to store sperm in

case he survived but was left sterile.
He did survive, and over the next 21 years his sperm stayed frozen at -196C in liquid hydrogen, with Nick paying the annual $250 storage fee "just in case".
After a failed marriage, he met Teresa seven years ago and love blossomed. In 2005, they left Adelaide for a new life on an organic farm near Victor Harbor and talk gradually got around to the frozen sperm.
They took the plunge, and after two IVF cycles with reproductive technology company Repromed, Teresa fell pregnant.
On November 4, after a nine-hour labour at Flinders Private Hospital culminating in an emergency caesarean section, Monique arrived as a healthy 3.6kg, 42cm bundle of joy.

"We still can't believe it – Monique is so beautiful and we feel we are the luckiest people in the world," Nick said. "We've both been quite emotional but this is just the best.
"Teresa and I haven't put up a Christmas tree since we have been together but this year we have a very special one with lots of presents."
No doubt a few of those will include Crows teddy bears. Before they applied for the birth certificate or baby bonus, Nick and Teresa applied for an Adelaide Football Club membership for Monique. The family have spent the past week in Port Pirie, where Nick grew up, catching up with family and dozens of well-wishers.

They will have a family Christmas at their home with plenty of relatives from both sides joining them to celebrate the miracles of two births 2000 years apart.

Teresa is keen to try for another child soon.
"Hopefully we will try for another two because I would love to have three children, but if not we will be very happy with our good luck with Monique," she said.

Nick had 22 sperm samples frozen, and has used four – two for tests and two in IVF cycles – leaving the couple 18 still in storage for future use.
Nick can now look back on his battle with cancer and laugh, although it was a debilitating battle involving 10 rounds of chemo, two operations and 27 lumbar punctures to deal with a tumour the size of a grapefruit in his chest.

Even his sperm storage was a drama. He had to produce a test specimen at the Royal Adelaide Hospital that was sent in a taxi to The Queen Elizabeth Hospital's reproductive medicine unit for analysis. When it was found viable he spent the next week producing specimens while hooked up to two tubes protruding from his chest from surgery, a drip in his arm and riddled with pain.

These, too, were bottled, put in brown paper bags and again sent to the QEH by taxi to be put into slumber.
Nick was strongly supported by the Port Pirie community, family, friends, doctors and fellow patients at that time.

He said his story in the Sunday Mail in October, when Teresa was pregnant, put him back in touch with many people thrilled to know his good fortune. "I was especially pleased the Sunday Mail was able to put me in touch with the family of Jenny Butterworth, a fellow cancer patient who gave me strength but sadly lost her own battle," he said.
"I have been blessed – at age 22 I was told I had just 10 months to live but I'll be 44 in January so have doubled my life, and now I have Teresa and our beautiful baby Monique. "I would urge any man diagnosed with cancer to consider his fertility options before chemotherapy, and parents or guardians should also think about it for teenage boys."

Good News For Young Male Cancer Patients

2008-12-14T14:10:00.000-08:00

Male cancer survivors (MCS) are at risk of suffering from impaired fertility. Male fertility is dependent on sperm DNA quality.

“Young men undergoing treatment for cancer often want to know how the disease and its treatment affect their chances of fathering healthy children. Our large-scale study shows that there is a slightly higher risk of deformities, but the actual risk of having a child with deformities is nevertheless extremely low. I think this is good news!”

These words are from the cancer physician Olof Ståhl, who has studied this issue in his coming dissertation from Lund University in Sweden.
It is known that undergoing radiation treatment and chemotherapy can affect male fertility. For this reason, attempts are always made nowadays to preserve and freeze sperm before cancer treatment starts. Just how fertility is affected then depends on the type of cancer and the type of treatment. The result can be anything from unaffected sperm production to complete loss of sperm production, with a middle group where production is impacted in a way that leaves fewer sperms with impaired mobility.

The question of possible connections between cancer and the risk of deformities in future children has been less thoroughly addressed. Can cancer have affected the sperms even though sperm production as such is entirely normal? And in cases requiring in vitro fertilization, IVF, is there a risk of using sperms that need help carrying out fertilization but also are bearing damaged genes? These issues have never been studied before.

Olof Ståhl and his associates have now addressed the questions in a register study of 1.8 million children in Denmark and Sweden, born between 1994 and 2005. All children with deformities (chromosome disturbances, cleft palate, heart malformations, etc.) were pulled from the register and compared with data about possible cancers in their fathers and whether they were fertilized normally or via IVF. The study shows that there is a slightly elevated risk for deformity both among children born to former cancer patients and among children conceived via test-tube fertilization.

The latter risk is already known, and it is regarded to be not so much due to IVF methods as to the fact that sperms that require IVF are of poorer quality. The risk elevation is small, however: from 3.2 percent – the ‘natural’ risk of deformity in children – to 3.7 percent and 3.8 percent respectively.

“This is such a tiny difference that it is virtually negligible. We also found that the combination of father-with-previous-cancer and IVF did not entail any further increase in risk. This is a great relief for former cancer patients who might be worried about the health of their future children,” claims Olof Ståhl.

The study is so new that it has not yet been published. The three other studies included in the dissertation were published in the journals Cancer, Human Reproduction, and International Journal of Andrology.

Healthy Sperm: Optimising your Fertility

2008-11-18T22:56:00.000-08:00

Your lifestyle and your exposure to certain environmental factors may affect your sperm and your fertility. Here are some things to boost your sperm quality and improve your fertility.

Do your sperm pass muster? Despite several months of effort, you and your partner haven't yet conceived. You're not ready to seek an infertility evaluation, but you might be wondering whether you're doing all you can to contribute healthy sperm.

Sperm quantity and quality varies among men and can be affected by a variety of things — some you can impact, others you can't. While you may not be able to control all the factors that may improve your chances of achieving a pregnancy, there are steps you can take to make sure your sperm are top performers.

Taking folic acid can enhance fertility in men, researchers say

2008-11-11T18:28:00.000-08:00

Men who increase their intake of a vitamin traditionally recommended for pregnant women can cut their chance of having abnormal sperm, researchers said today.

A study published in the journal Human Reproduction found that men who consumed a higher than recommended daily amount of folate and folic acid had lower frequency of abnormal sperm.

Researchers in California analysed sperm samples from 89 men and questioned them about their daily intake from both diet and vitamin supplements. Men who consumed between 722 and 1,150 micrograms had a 20-30 per cent reduction in abnormal sperm.

In the UK, the daily recommended amount for adults is 200 micrograms per day and 400 micrograms for women trying to conceive and until the third month of pregnancy. Folic acid is known to help protect against the development of spina bifida.

Folate is a water soluble B vitamin in food such as pulses, beans and spinach while folic acid is its synthetic form.
One of the researchers, Brenda Eskenazi, Professor of Maternal and Child Health and Epidemiology and Director of the Centre for Children's Environmental Health at the University of California, Berkeley, said: "In previous studies, we and others have shown that paternal micronutrient intake may contribute to successful conceptions by improving the quality of the sperm.

"This study is the first to suggest that paternal diet may play a role in the development of healthy offspring."

Sperm damage rises from 35: study

2008-10-25T00:42:00.000-07:00

Sperm damage rises from 35: study

Older women are not alone in their fertility troubles, according to Australian research confirming the male biological clock is ticking too.
A new study has found a man's fertility starts a steady decline from his mid-30s when sperm starts to fragment.
Researchers at Sydney IVF analysed the DNA of semen samples taken from 3,300 men in NSW and Tasmania, and found older men hadless chance of fathering a child.
The find, presented at a fertility conference in Brisbane this week, is the biggest in Australia to show infertility dogs both sexes as they age.
"Drops in fertility from the age of 35 have been traditionally thought of as a fact of life for women but our study shows the same is true of men," said the centre's medical director Dr Mark Bowman.
The study showed that from the age of 35, a significant proportion of men's sperm is damaged, a process called DNA fragmentation. And the percentage of damaged sperm climbs from about 17% at 35 to 22% at 45.
"What this means is that even if a man produces the average of 40 million sperm per ejaculation, many of those sperm will not be able to fertilise an egg normally," Bowman said.
"He will have a lower fertility potential and be less likely to father a child."
One in six Australian couples experience infertility, defined as attempting to conceive for one year without success, and specialists say delaying parenthood into the late 30s and 40s is a leading factor.
About 40% of couples seeking IVF treatment do so due to a male fertility problem.
Bowman said couples should consider becoming parents earlier.
"Australian men need to take their fertility seriously," he said.
"They need to be aware of their potential to become fathers and not assume that they'll be OK as their age advances."
Studies have shown that lifestyle changes, particularly giving up smoking, limiting alcohol, eating well and taking antioxidants, can help slow changes in male fertility.
Professor Rob McLachlan, director of Andrology Australia in Melbourne, said the issue of male infertility was often overshadowed.

SOURCE: tvnz.co.nz

Proteins In Sperm Unlock Understanding Of Male Infertility, Says New Study

2008-10-25T00:32:00.000-07:00

Proteins In Sperm Unlock Understanding Of Male Infertility, Says New Study
ScienceDaily (Oct. 9, 2008) — Proteins found in sperm are central to understanding male infertility and could be used to determine new diagnostic methods and fertility treatments, according to a paper published by the journal Molecular and Cellular Proteomics (MCP).

The article demonstrates how proteomics, a relatively new field focusing on the function of proteins in a cell, can be successfully applied to infertility, helping identify which proteins in sperm cells are dysfunctional.
"Up to 50 percent of male-factor infertility cases in the clinic have no known cause, and therefore no direct treatment. In-depth study of the molecular basis of infertility has great potential to inform the development of sensitive diagnostic tools and effective therapies," write co-authors Diana Chu, assistant professor of biology at San Francisco State University and Tammy Wu, post-doctoral fellow at SF State.
The study is included in a special Oct. 10 issue of MCP dedicated to the clinical application of proteomics.
"We suggest how the study of proteins is useful in the clinic, to help people move from infertile to fertile and ultimately to help couples have a baby," Chu said. "The ultimate goal is that a doctor could be able to say to a patient, 'this is the protein that is misregulated in your sperm and this is the drug that corrects it or decreases the level of that protein.' Understanding sperm proteins also means that a doctor could be able to inform patients of the likely success rates of different fertility therapies, an important factor given the high cost of fertility treatments."
More than 2 million couples in the U.S. are facing infertility. While many scientific studies examine the supply of sperm, its mobility and its ability to fertilize, Chu argues that a wider array of sensitive tests – including studies of cell proteins – are needed to determine the root causes of male infertility.
Proteins found in sperm cells are unique. This means therapies can be developed that target only these proteins and do not produce side effects in the patient or defects in the resulting offspring.
Chu's paper highlights a selection of recent advances in the study of proteins in sperm cells, citing studies that have identified specific proteins that correlate with infertility.

Chu argues that further large-scale clinical studies are needed to identify patterns in the proteins found in the sperm of infertile patients. This would help scientists to better understand which proteins to focus on, since each sperm cell contains more than 2,000 proteins and each patient's sperm varies slightly in its protein content.
Understanding the function of individual proteins in sperm cells may not only aid scientists' understanding of fertility, but can also explain the causes of miscarriages, 50 percent of which have unexplained causes. Chu also suggests that further studies of the proteins found in sperm cells will have a significant impact on our understanding of the paternal protein contribution that can have long lasting effects on future generations.

Diana Chu is assistant professor of biology at San Francisco State University where she uses proteomic approaches to research the function of proteins associated to sperm chromatin. San Francisco State University's biology department is the largest in the California State University system. SF State ranks second among all U.S. comprehensive universities whose graduates successfully enroll in Ph.D. programs.

Getting tiny portion of sunshine may help men with fertility problems

2008-10-23T18:28:00.000-07:00

Yokes having tough times conceiving should try getting out of their homes more often. Yes, researchers suggest couples who have fertility issues should spend some more time outside their bedroom walls too, especially men. Getting a tiny portion of sunshine researchers reveal may help men with fertility problems.
The research could bring a ray of hope literally for infertile men. The study is a work of Laura Thomson, a doctoral student from University of Sydney who is investigating DNA fragmentation of sperm a significant factor in male infertility. Going on to reveal that vitamin D deficiency plays a significant role in determining male fertility, researchers suggests the sunshine vitamin may in fact help boost their fertility.
DNA fragmentation of sperm is often a consequence of cellular damage due to habits like smoking. Though it could be also be a result of infection or advanced paternal age.
According Dr Clark, medical director at the Fertility First assisted reproduction clinic in Sydney, “The results show lifestyle changes can be beneficial. Vitamin D and folate deficiency are known to be associated with infertility in women, but the outcomes of the screening among men in our study group came as a complete surprise. The vitamin D deficiency could have been caused by worries about skin cancer and by men trying to avoid too much exposure to sunshine.”
The study involved the blood screening of about 794 men who visited the Fertility First unit. An analysis of these men showed that nearly a third of them suffered from vitamin D deficiency. In addition these men also had a deficiency of folate along with increased levels of homocysteine, an amino acid in the blood commonly associated with cell toxicity. A follow up showed that among these couples just over half conceived naturally or with minimal treatment for those males who completed the treatment for their nutritional deficiencies.
Keeping the screening results as backdrop researchers associated with the study managed to convince about 123 men to undergo some lifestyle changes. These changes included quitting smoking, reducing caffeine and alcohol intake, losing weight and some diet changes. These volunteers were also put on antioxidants and multivitamins for 2 to 3 months. The researchers reveal that the lifestyle changes brought about a 75% reduction in the sperm fragmentation for these men. About 40 pregnancies were achieved among these tested men.
The pregnancies were also found to be natural and with no or minimal need for intervention. Dr Clark mentions that just about three miscarriages or a 6% miscarriage rate was found for those pregnancies compared to women using fertility treatment with an average 22% miscarriage rate. Researchers thus suggest that men need just a minimal quantity of sunshine to enhance levels of vitamin D in their body-about 15 or 20 minutes in the sun should do the trick. Workers can absorb vitamin D by rolling up their sleeves in the tea break.
With one in six Australian couples experiencing infertility, the distinct study supports a previous European study earlier this year that showed a link between women’s vitamin D levels and their ability to conceive.
Presented to this week’s Fertility Society of Australia conference, Dr Clark concludes that these findings could be really helpful for couples struggling to conceive. It could also bring down the costs of fertility treatment.

HIV positive men can now father children

2008-10-23T18:06:00.001-07:00

HIV positive men can now father children

It was the prick of a needle that changed life irrevocably for Chandigarh-based medical practitioner Amogh Singh (name changed on request). The needle passed on the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (or HIV) to the 32-year-old doctor. Among his many concerns was his despair at believing he would never be able to have a child.
But that changed a few months ago. Singh can now father a child because of a unique in-vitro fertilisation process that was developed in the west and has now become available in India. He and his wife have begun packing their bags and will soon arrive in Mumbai to try out the new procedure. The treatment will help the couple have a child without passing on the infection either to the mother or the newborn, by separating uninfected sperm cells in Singh’s sperm sample.
“The procedure, called the Density Gradient Centrifugation, separates the sperm cell and eliminates the virus effectively from the seminal fluid where the virus is generally found,” says Anirudh Malpani, a Mumbai-based IVF practitioner. The process involves high-speed rotation of the patient’s sperm sample in a test tube. This causes the uninfected cells to rise to the top of the tube, while the infected cells settle at the bottom.
Recent research shows encouraging results in the separation of infected sperms from non-infected ones for IVF. “We have established a very simple and effective method to isolate sperm cells from even poor quality infected semen. It’s called tilted-tube rotation method and with it, we have been successful in recovering motile sperm from positive males with heavy viral loads,” says Naoaki Kuji of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Keio University School of Medicine. Kuji has developed the Density Gradient Centrifugation process.
“A cluster of negative sperm cells can be obtained by this method which then can be used in any process of IVF,” explains noted IVF expert Indira Hinduja.
The method was first developed by SPAR — the Special Program of Assisted Reproduction, a renowned programme under the Bedford Research Foundation Clinical Laboratory in Massachusetts, USA. One of the earliest methods used to separate the uninfected sperm cells involved sperm washing.
The process was based on research findings that indicated that approximately two-thirds of the semen produced by all HIV-infected men has no detectable virus. Hence, the washed sperm from such samples produces semen that is safe to use for an IVF treatment, resulting in an uninfected baby and mother.
The Bedford Research Foundation also offers this service to clinics worldwide. One has to collect a sperm sample and send it to the foundation preserved in liquid nitrogen. After treating the samples and separating the negative sperm cells, the Bedford clinical lab sends cryo-preserved sperm with an undetectable amount of virus to infertility centres worldwide.
According to Malpani, most of the requests he receives for such IVF treatments come from people like Singh — positive males who don’t indulge in high-risk behaviour and who have been infected due to professional hazards. “All this while, they lived a condemned life. But now they have the option of starting a family without hurting anyone,” Malpani says.
Most HIV/AIDS care agencies in the country advocate against HIV positives either getting married or having children. However, some like Shabana Kapur of the Maharashtra Network of Positive People (NMP+) disagree. “The decision to get married or have children, and particularly the latter, should be left to individuals. With anti-retroviral therapy increasingly improving the quality of life and life spans, one should look at life positively. A person who gets infected at 30 can easily live a good life for the next 30 years. Why should he compromise?” she asks.
Diabetes ‘decreases male fertility’

SOURCE: TIMES ONLINE

Experts have suspected as much for years and now it has been confirmed: diabetes is a threat to male fertility, according to new research by Queen’s University Belfast.
The study found the impact was strongest in people with type 1 diabetes, which is usually present from childhood, but was also apparent in men who developed the condition later.
Fertility experts at the university have been studying sperm samples from 60 diabetic men for several years, comparing them with thousands of other men without the condition. The latest study, involving examination of the semen of eight men with diabetes, found that it had disrupted the DNA in their sperm.
The researchers concluded that high blood sugar levels meant men with the condition “have a significant decrease in their ability to repair sperm DNA, and once this is damaged it cannot be restored”.
Neil McClure, professor of obstetrics and gynaecology at the university, said the possibility of a link between the condition and reduced fertility had been mooted before but adequate research had never been carried out.
“Male fertility has always been looked at in diabetics in a haphazard way,” he said. “Under a light microscope there’s no difference, but in DNA analysis, you see a lot more damage. Diabetes affects virtually every part of the body. It sticks little sugar molecules onto everything, so when we looked at the sperm we found a lot of these molecules. The whole way the DNA functions in the diabetic man is upset.”
Corresponding research at the university’s In Vitro Fertilisation (IVF) unit found that where the father had diabetes, the treatment’s success rate decreased. McClure said they had also used research from Australia. It showed that the percentage of men with diabetes enrolling for IVF treatment was three times higher than average.
“Diabetes poses a threat to their fertility. It’s not an absolute barrier but it does make it more difficult,” said McClure. “We wouldn’t say diabetic men don’t need to use contraception but we would say if they and their partner are looking to get pregnant, it could take a lot longer.”
The team presented their findings at the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology conference in Barcelona this month. They said that the research was important because the age at which people are getting diabetes is decreasing and that the men affected are increasingly of reproductive age.
An Institute of Public Health report in 2006 estimated that there were 143,000 people living with diabetes in Ireland, of which 58,807 were men. One in 10 had type 1 diabetes, while the remaining 129,000 had late-onset type 2 diabetes. This often develops during adulthood as a result of obesity, high blood sugar, old age or genetics.
The Diabetes Federation of Ireland believes there are a further 200,000 people who are unaware that they have the condition and 250,000 people who have impaired glucose tolerance, or “pre-diabetes” — half of whom will go on to develop diabetes unless they make lifestyle changes.
Anna Clarke, spokeswoman for the Diabetes Federation, said the Queen’s University research needed more analysis. But McClure said that “meticulous control of blood sugar” was mandatory for men looking to have children.