Sperm home test kit

How are the little swimmers doing? Low sperm counts or poor sperm quality are behind around a third of cases of couples who can’t conceive. A visit to a clinic for a test can be awkward, but a smartphone-based system lets men determine whether that’s necessary by checking their fertility at home.

Men often find it embarrassing to give a semen sample at a clinic, says Yoshitomo Kobori at the Dokkyo Medical University Koshigaya Hospital in Japan. So Kobori devised an alternative. “I thought a smartphone microscope could be an easy way to look at problems with male fertility,” he says.

Kobori and his colleagues came up with a lens less than a millimetre thick that can be slotted into a plastic “jacket”. Clipped on to the camera of a smartphone, it magnifies an image by 555 times – perfect for looking at sperm.

To do a home test, a man would apply a small amount of semen to a plastic sheet around five minutes after ejaculation and press it against the microscope.

Watch them swim

The phone’s camera can then take a 3-second video clip of the sperm. When viewed enlarged on a computer screen, it is easy for someone to count the total number of sperm and the number that are moving – key indicators of fertility.

Kobori says the system works as well as the software used in fertility clinics. When the team ran 50 samples through both systems, they got almost identical results. The work was presented at the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology meeting in Helsinki this month.

The system can’t assess the ability of sperm to fertilise an egg. “This method is only the simple version of semen analysis,” says Kobori. But that could be enough for men to identify potential fertility problems, and decide whether to seek help from a doctor.

New microscopy may identify best sperm cells: Cutting-edge innovation pinpoints top candidates for assisted reproductive technology

New microscopy may identify best sperm cells: Cutting edge innovation pinpoints top candidates for assisted reproductive technology.

: New microscopic technology promises to be a game-changer in the field of reproductive assistance. A team of scientists has devised a new method of microscopy allowing scientists to perform clinical sperm analysis for in vitro fertilization without the use of staining, which can affect the viability of sperm samples.

IVF baby born from world’s oldest sperm

Little Xavier Powell has been dubbed the world’s oldest baby after he was born from sperm that was harvested nearly 23 years ago.

The baby boy recently received the title from the Guinness World Book of Records, which said that he was conceived at a fertility group in Queensland, Australia, on Sept 24 last year.

According to The Mirror UK, Xavier was born on June 17 this year to Australian couple Alex Powell and Vi Nguyen via in-vitro fertilisation (IVF).

When he was 15 years old, Mr Powell was diagnosed with a rare type of cancer that affects the lymphatic system – Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

Although he was only a teenager at the time, his stepmother had advised him to freeze his sperm before undergoing chemotherapy.

Sperm cells can be easily damaged by chemotherapy as it kills cells that divide rapidly, an article by the American Cancer Society explains.

The treatment may also reduce the number of sperm cells, reduce their quality, and cause the cancer patient to suffer from infertility.

After what Mr Powell described as “an awkward session” at the sperm bank, a sample of his semen remained frozen in the facility for over two decades.

He subsequently made a full recovery from cancer and later met his wife.

The couple decided to have a child through IVF in late 2013, and spent nearly a year as well as half of the frozen sperm before getting pregnant with Xavier.

On his son’s birth, Mr Powell said in an interview with 9News: “For me, it’s that sort of feeling in life you want to relive every moment if you can.”

He added that they might try for a second child using the same method.

Meanwhile, a baby girl born in the United States in 2009 is believed to have been the titleholder of ‘World’s oldest baby’ before Xavier’s arrival.

ABC News reported that she was born 22 years after her father Chris Biblis froze his sperm while battling leukaemia in 1986.

According to medical experts, sperm frozen at -196 degrees Celsius can be stored and used after an indefinite period of time.

In a report by The Guardian UK, Alan Pacey, an andrologist at Sheffield University elaborated: “There’s very little happening at the cellular level. There’s no enzymatic activity, no DNA transcription and everything metabolic is switched off.”

 

Study confirms that sperm quality decreases with age

Conflicting evidence about the extent to which men's semen quality declines with age - likely lowering their fertility - is being cleared up by new University of Otago research that has collated and reviewed data from 90 previous studies from around the world.

After conducting a systematic review and meta-analysis of the studies' data, researchers from the University's Departments of Zoology and Anatomy found consistent age-related declines in semen volume and sperm performance and increases in malformed and DNA-damaged sperm. Semen quality is regarded as a proxy for how fertile a male is.

Study lead author Dr Sheri Johnson says that understanding how age affects fertility is becoming increasingly important as couples delay childbearing toward later stages of their lives.

"While female age is well known to have negative effects on fertility, reproductive success and the health of offspring, the influence of male age on a couple's fertility has been largely neglected.

"The effects of declining semen traits with increasing male age have largely been ignored due to inconsistencies in the literature, but our work now suggests that male age affects a variety of traits. It is well recognised that reduced sperm performance can affect pregnancy success, but it is less well known that the quality of the sperm, particularly DNA quality, could affect the development and health of the offspring," Dr Johnson says.

Dr Johnson and her co-authors synthesised the current state of knowledge from 90 individual studies, spanning around 94,000 volunteers/patients from more than 30 countries. Their Marsden-funded study appears in the international journal, Ageing Research Reviews.

"Our study made no attempt to estimate the rate of decline, but some well-controlled clinic-based studies have observed consistent declines with increasing age, whereas others project declines after age 35 for some traits and after age 40 for others" she says.

Professor Neil Gemmell, a co-author on the paper, says the consistency in its findings suggests that further awareness of the potential consequences of male age on reproductive outcomes is needed.

"Older males contribute to increased risk of obstetric complications, miscarriage, and offspring disorders such as autism, Down syndrome, epilepsy, and schizophrenia. In addition, increasing male age may be an overlooked component of couple infertility, leading to our increased use and dependency on fertility treatments, such as IVF."

Overall, the authors advise that clinicians and the general public need to be aware of the risks associated with male age on fertility outcomes.

The authors suggest that clinical analysis of the percentage of DNA-fragmented sperm cells and a greater focus on how well sperm swim may lead to better patient outcomes during fertility treatments of ageing couples.

"These are likely more accurate and consistent predictors of a man's fertility status than commonly clinically measured traits such as semen volume, sperm concentration and total sperm count," Dr Johnson says.
source: medicalnewstoday 

Exploring the stigma of male infertility

The issue of male infertility can leave men floundering and uncommunicative but taking a medical and holistic approach can have astonishing results.
By Catherine Shanahan
THERE are a range of labels and phrases around male infertility designed to kick a man when he’s down. There’s the word ‘jaffa’, slang for an infertile man, inspired by the seedless orange. There’s the reference to ‘shooting blanks’ and ‘bad swimmers’.

The terminology adds insult to injury for men struggling to come to terms with the fact that their ability to father a child is either severely compromised or downright impossible.

Thomas McCluskey, a 32-year-old security worker from Clondalkin, Co Dublin, was beginning to think he was in the latter category after he and wife Karen, (31) had spent five years trying to conceive.

Initially, he kept quiet about his difficulties.

“It’s not like you’d walk into the local and say to the lads ‘I’m shooting blanks’. There’s a stigma attached,” Thomas says.

[timg]KarenThomasMcCluskeyAndBaby_large.jpg[/img]

Perfect result: Baby TJ McCluskey with parents Karen and Thomas McCluskey.

Dr Tim Dineen, laboratory manager at Cork Fertility Centre (CFC), agrees. He conducted a series of interviews to study the male reaction to fertility problems while working on a masters in genetic counselling.

“When I conducted interviews for my thesis 10 years ago, male fertility was a taboo subject and I found men were very slow to discuss it.

“My research suggested that identifying the root cause of subfertility, (a less than normal capacity for reproduction), can help the male psychologically, in that he may not blame himself and/ or think that he contributed to his problem. Men may also be reassured that male factor subfertility can be overcome through various treatment options,” Dineen says.

His research also highlighted the psychological impact of subfertility on the man.

“Many men had feelings of disappointment, failure, anxiety and anger, particularly when it’s something they have little control over such as a genetic condition,” he says.

Then there was the impact of infertility on a relationship. A colleague of Dineen’s did a study which found men can suffer low self-esteem and have high levels of stress when a diagnosis of subfertility is made, and these feelings can be acerbated by a lack of openness to communication. This in turn can decrease the level of overall contentment with the marital relationship.

However, what many men did not realise, says Dineen, is that male factor subfertility problems are not as rare as they might think.

“We see men every week who think they are the only one with this problem, but in fact, in at least one third of all cases, subfertility can be attributed to the male,” he says.

McCluskey was surprised when his sperm count came back on the low side after he had it tested three years into trying for a baby. The doctor advised him to lose weight (he was 19½ stone at the time) and to cut back on smoking (20 a day) and drinking, (24 cans a week).

“There was some sperm there so I though I was not doing anything too wrong. The doctor said, ‘You’re a young lad, try and cut down’, but I didn’t make too much of an effort to change at the time,” he says.

After another year-and-a-half of trying unsuccessfully to conceive, McCluskey went again for semen analysis, the principle investigation used to evaluate male fertility — it measures the number of sperm, the motility, (ability to move), and the morphology, (shape). Costs vary per clinic. At CFC the test ranges between €75 and €125.

Thomas’ sperm count was even lower this time around, but it took a TV show to get him motivated. He heard that TV3 were looking for a couple experiencing difficulties conceiving for a show called How Healthy Are You?.

“I had nothing to lose by doing the show. We didn’t have money to go down the IVF route and the show was looking at alternative therapies, so we went for it,” Thomas says.

The alternatives included analysing diet and lifestyle and making the necessary changes and trying out complementary therapies such as acupuncture and hypnotherapy.

Senior clinical embryologist Declan Keane, founder of the ReproMed clinics in Dublin and Kilkenny, was one of the show’s contributors. He’s a firm believer in exhausting the alternatives before heading down the route of advanced medical treatments.

“At present in Ireland, there’s no true link between those offering medical therapies and those offering complementary or holistic therapies. There should, in my view, be an integrated medical approach incorporating nutrition, dietary advice, psychological advice and other holistic therapies,” he says.

Being identified as subfertile can threaten men’s core identity. Keane believes men take infertility very personally, that it “hits the masculine or macho side”. While Dineen believes men find it difficult to distinguish between virility (sex drive), and fertility.

Many ask, “Am I not a real man if I can’t procreate?” he says.

CFC offers free counselling to help men deal with the psychological side. McCluskey concedes that he was under a lot of stress. “You can get very stressed thinking ‘I’ll never have kids’. From a male point of view you don’t want to think that you can’t father a child,” he says.

The couple seized the opportunities the show offered, changing diet with the help of nutritionist Elsa Jones, moving from heavily processed convenience foods to wholesome, fresh produce. They tried acupuncture with Karen Costin, a therapy Thomas said gave a “huge sense of relief” and hypnotherapist and psychotherapist Aisling Killoran put him in a better mental state. “It might seem like a lot of hocus-pocus to some people, but it’s actually quite practical. It relaxes you and puts you in a fantastic frame of mind,” says McCluskey.

But despite their best efforts, he got more bad news during the show. Another semen analysis showed no sperm present whatsoever.

Was this the end of the road? Not necessarily, Dineen says.

“The good news is that it is possible for him [a man with no sperm in the ejaculate], to still have his own biological child. We can carry out a testicular biopsy, Testicular Sperm Extraction (TESE), to retrieve sperm from testicular tissue; this may either be carried out on the day of ICSI treatment or a sample may equally be frozen and stored for use at a later date.”

ICSI (Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection), one of the most popular techniques used to overcome the problems of low sperm count and poor motility, involves injecting a single moving sperm into the female partner’s egg, (collected for fertilisation outside the womb and transferred back after fertilisation has occurred).

At CFC, TESE is carried out under local anaesthetic and takes approximately 20 minutes; the clinic carries out approximately 40 procedures a year. Dineen says this method of sperm retrieval is very successful, and sperm is retrieved from tissue in about 80% of cases, resulting in a live birth rate of 42% per transfer.

However for men who undergo biopsy and no sperm are recovered, they do unfortunately hit a genetic cul de sac. “And you are then looking at options such as use of donor sperm,” he says. Donor sperm was not an option McCluskey had ever considered. It was suggested to him after the test where no semen was found.

“That was stunning news. That was life-changing. When it only takes one sperm to get pregnant, that news was devastating. I felt I had nothing to work with.”

In a panic, the couple sought more intense help from the therapists and doctors involved in the TV3 show. Declan Keane was encouraging. “He told me it takes three months to make sperm. I think that’s why my lifestyle changes didn’t take immediate effect. But I didn’t now that until he told me,” says McCluskey.

In the end, he did have something to work with. On January 5, he and Karen, an office administrator, had their first child, Thomas Jack (TJ).

Against what seemed like overwhelming odds, it was a spontaneous pregnancy. And amid all the stress and disappointment, the manner in which McCluskey learned he would finally become a father had its humorous side.

Karen was a week late menstruating and decided to do a pregnancy test.

McCluskey didn’t encourage her. “I said ‘Karen, we’ve been here so many times before’.” Karen did a test anyway but didn’t hang about for the result. “She was annoyed with me about something. She went off to work and left the pregnancy test on top of the cistern,” he says.

Later in the bathroom, he spotted the test. A casual glance gave way to an incredulous stare. “I’ll never forget it as long as I live. It was a massive surprise. There were two blue lines,” he says.

McCluskey rang his wife with the news. She didn’t believe him. In the end he had to send a photograph via his iphone. So now that he’s achieved what seemed the impossible, (in his words “a true miracle”), what advice does he have for other men dealing with infertility issues?

“Do your research. Don’t give up. You don’t necessarily have to go down the IVF or ICSI route. Examine your diet and lifestyle”.

And ultimately he says ‘Get yourselves checked out’.

“When you are coming to an age where having children is on the agenda, get the test done to see where you are on the scale.”

Low folate in male diet linked to risk of offspring birth defects

Previous research has shown that what mothers eat during pregnancy affects the health of their offspring. But now, a new study suggests that a father's diet prior to conception could also play an important role in their child's health, particularly when it comes to consumption of folate.

Folate , also known as vitamin B9, is found naturally in a broad variety of foods, including dark green leafy vegetables, nuts, beans, peas, fruit and fruit juices, dairy products, poultry and meat, eggs, seafood and grains.

In 1998, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) required manufacturers to add folate to enriched breads, flours, cereals, cornmeals, pastas, rice and many other grain products, since these products are highly consumed in the US.

The researchers, led by Sarah Kimmins of McGill University in Canada, say that in order for mothers to help prevent miscarriages and birth defects, it is well known that they must consume sufficient levels of folate.

According to the Office of Dietary Supplements, a part of the National Institutes of Health, women of childbearing age should have 400 mcg (micrograms) of folate each day from dietary supplements and/or fortified foods, and this increases to 600 mcg a day for pregnant women.

But the investigators note that whether a father's folate levels play an important role in the development of their offspring has been under-studied.

Folate deficiency linked to increased risk of birth defects

New research has revealed that a man's diet could impact the health of his child, and low levels of folate could significantly increase the risk of their infant having birth defects.

To investigate this further, the research team conducted a mouse study in which they compared offspring of fathers who had sufficient folate levels to the offspring of fathers who had low folate levels.

Their findings, published in the journal Nature Communications, revealed that offspring of mice fathers who had insufficient folate levels had a 30% increase in birth defects, such as cranio-facial and spinal deformities, compared with offspring of fathers who had adequate levels of the vitamin.

Explaining the reasons behind their findings, the researchers note that there are areas of the sperm epigenome that are sensitive to lifestyle choices, particularly diet. The epigenome can influence the way in which genes are activated and how certain information is passed on to offspring.

They say that the sperm can carry a "memory" of a father's lifestyle choices and diet, and the information from a father's diet is transferred to an "epigenomic map," which can influence a child's development.

Fathers 'need to think about diet just as much as mothers'

Sarah Kimmins says their findings suggest that fathers need to think about what they eat, smoke and drink just as much as mothers do, as their lifestyle choices could impact future generations.

And she notes that although folate is added to many foods, fathers who have diets that are high in fat or who are obese may be unable to metabolize folate in the same way as those who have sufficient levels of the vitamin.

She adds:

"People who live in the Canadian North or in other parts of the world where there is food insecurity may also be particularly at risk for folate deficiency. And we now know that this information will be passed on from the father to the embryo with consequences that may be quite serious."

The researchers say that the next steps from this research will be to collaborate with professionals at a fertility clinic in order to further investigate how a man's diet and weight could impact their child's health.


Written by Honor Whiteman

Hope for thousands of infertile men from British discovery

Researchers have discovered that adding a missing protein to infertile human sperm can 'kick-start' its ability to fertilise an egg and dramatically increase the chances of a successful pregnancy.

The team, from Cardiff University's School of Medicine, first found that sperm transfers a vital protein, known as PLC-zeta (PLCz), to the egg upon fertilisation.

This sperm protein initiates a process called "egg activation" which sets off all the biological processes necessary for development of an embryo.

Now, the team has found that eggs that do not fertilise because of a defective PLCz, as in some forms of male infertility, can be treated with the active protein to produce egg activation.

The added PLCz kick-starts the fertilisation process and significantly improves the chance of a successful pregnancy.

It is estimated that at least 2,000 men a year seeking fertility treatment may suffer from a lack of or damage to the PLC-zeta protein.

Professor Tony Lai, who led the research with Professor Karl Swann, said: "We know that some men are infertile because their sperm fail to activate eggs.

"Even though their sperm fuses with the egg, nothing happens. These sperm may lack a proper functioning version of PLCz, which is essential to trigger the next stage in becoming pregnant.

"What's important from our research is that we have used human sperm PLCz to obtain the positive results that we had previously observed only in experiments with mice.

"In the lab we have been able to prepare human PLCz protein that is active. If this protein is inactive or missing from sperm, it fails to trigger the process necessary for egg activation – the next crucial stage of embryo development.

"However, when an unfertilised egg is injected with human PLCz, it responds exactly as it should do at fertilisation, resulting in successful embryo development to the blastocyst stage, vital to pregnancy success."

Professor Lai added: "We've established that this one sperm protein, PLCz, is absolutely critical at the point where life begins.

"Whilst this was a lab experiment and our method could not be used in a fertility clinic in exactly the same way – there is potential to translate this advance into humans.

"In the future, we could produce the human PLCz protein and use it to stimulate egg activation in a completely natural way. For those couples going through IVF treatment, it could ultimately improve their chances of having a baby and treat male infertility."

The research was published online by the journal Fertility and Sterility and was funded by the Wellcome Trust.

Dr Allan Pacey, a senior lecturer in andrology (male reproduction) at the University of Sheffield, said: "I think this is very interesting research. It is exciting that they have got to this stage."

He estimated that about 2,000 of the 50,000 couples undergoing fertility treatment a year could benefit from the discovery.

 

Gel to boost male fertility being developed by scientists

British scientists have gained fresh insight into the causes of male infertility that promise to provide new treatments for couples struggling to have children.
Male fertility has been largely overlooked until recently with most treatments requiring women to take medication or undergo expensive and invasive procedures.
Up to half of the problems suffered by couples trying to conceive, however, are due to the man's fertility.
Now research into a key aspect of male fertility - how sperm cells swim - has enabled scientists at the University of Birmingham to identify potential new treatments that can "supercharge" men's reproductive cells.
The scientists have discovered chemical compounds that increase the swimming ability of sperm cells and they believe this can help to boost the number of cells capable of reaching a woman's egg.
They are now using the compounds to develop a new gel they hope will increase the chance of couples conceiving naturally without the need for expensive treatments such as IVF.

Father speaks of his pride at IVF baby daughter who took 21 years to arrive

The news could hardly have been more devastating for policeman John Powell.
Diagnosed with testicular cancer at the age of 32, he was given only six
months to live and told that aggressive chemo- therapy would leave him
infertile.
That was 21 years ago – and now he and his wife are celebrating the arrival
of a daughter.
Mr Powell had a sperm sample frozen before he began the treatment and, when he
was finally given the all-clear after two decades, it was used to create baby
Jasmine.
‘We couldn’t be happier – she is a wonder of medical science,’ said Mr
Powell at home with wife Chenphen in Orpington, Kent.
‘I look at little Jasmine and think she is nothing less than miraculous. I
honestly didn’t believe she was real until the moment she was born and I saw
her face. Now I hold her and think she is part of me from 20 years ago, before
I had chemotherapy.
‘It’s astonishing that something as beautiful and perfect as Jasmine could
come out of a time that was so painful and difficult.’
For Mr and Mrs Powell, the birth of their daughter on February 20 is even
more of a wonder because they had enough money to fund only one cycle of IVF.
They were also fighting against the clock because strict rules meant Mr
Powell’s sperm would have had to be destroyed when he reached the age of 55.
Medical staff at the Bridge Centre in London, where they underwent the
treatment, believe it is a British record for 20-year-old sperm to be
successful in its first cycle.
Trevor White, an engineer from Manchester, became a father in 2004 after his
sperm had been frozen for 21 years. However baby Daniel was conceived after
four separate rounds of IVF.
‘I never thought we would be lucky enough for it to work,’ said 53-year-old
Mr Powell, a former superintendent with the Metropolitan force. ‘I didn’t allow
myself to believe it had been a success until the moment Jasmine was born.’
Mr Powell already had a daughter, now 23, with his first wife when he was
diagnosed with cancer in 1990. They split a few years later and after a period
alone he visited Thailand, where friends introduced him to Chenphen.
Source: ukonlinenigeria.com

Single Frozen Sperm produces ‘Miracle Baby’ through IVF

While we all know that just one sperm and one egg are needed to produce a baby, we also know that the average male produces a lot more (60 million to 100 million per ejaculation), just to make sure one sperm makes it. So the odds of just one produced sperm being able to make an actual baby are pretty slim. Yet Jason and Jennifer Schiraldi have little Kenley to prove that it is possible – a miracle, but possible.
Jason and Jennifer were high school sweethearts. They had always known they wanted children, but after nine years of being together, they still hadn’t conceived even once. So, like most couples, they visited the doctor to find out why.
“I’d never had any woman problems and you never think it’s the guy,” Jennifer stated. But the tests proved she was wrong. “They took a sample and we found out immediately: There’s no sperm.”
So, as it turned out, Jason and Jennifer were among the 30 to 40 percent of infertile couples in which the male was the infertile partner. But this determined couple was unwilling to admit defeat.
“We always wanted kids and I didn’t want to be the one who couldn’t do that for her,” Jason stated.
He underwent an aggressive infertility treatment which included a testicular biopsy: a procedure in which small amounts of testicular tissue are removed to search for viable sperm. Jason shared that the surgical procedure was extremely challenging. But searching for viable sperm proved to be even more challenging for the lab staff.
The surgeon sent down three total samples. They used microscopes to scan each and every tissue sample. They searched for nine hours in total. Out of all of the samples, only one viable sperm was found…just one.
That one sperm would be used in a procedure known as intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI), a special in-vitro fertilization technique developed by Nina Desai, the director of the IVF laboratory at the Clinic Cleveland that Jason and Jennifer went to. Tiny amounts of sperm are stored in a drop of fluid inside a straw as thin as a sewing needle. The sperm can then be frozen until it is ready to be thawed and used.
This new method is the result of almost two decades of research and development to save the smallest amounts of sperm possible. It is hoped to be a success for other men like Jason that struggle with extremely low sperm counts. In fact, since Jason and Jennifer’s success, another patient has already signed up to start to procedure.
Still, as promising as scientists and researchers hope the procedure to be, they usually have more than just one sperm to perform the fertilization process. Desai was skeptical that Jason and Jennifer would be able to walk away with a viable pregnancy.
“We froze that one sperm and we saved the rest of the specimens,” stated Desai. “It was like a shot in the dark….We really had no hope of it doing anything.”
Desai and her team were even more disheartened when it came time to harvest Jennifer’s eggs. She had fewer eggs than normal.
“I got 12 but only eight were good,” she stated.
With eight good eggs, the IVF experts went back to check Jason’s samples again, hoping they would find a few more sperm. They wanted to try and fertilize as many of Jennifer’s eggs as possible. But all they came up with was a few dead sperm. The one sperm was their only option.
“They got the one sperm and implanted the one egg,” explained Jennifer. “People don’t usually get pregnant when they only have one egg.”
Yet, despite all odds, scientists were able to fertilize the one egg with the one sperm. In three days, the fertilized egg started to divide into a viable embryo, which was then implanted into Jennifer’s uterus.
Sixteen days later, Jennifer was confirmed to be pregnant.
“It was very emotional,” Jason stated. “Miracle is not a large enough word to describe it. Of all of the fascinating and amazing things we do in the health care field, it’s amazing that this happens to us.”
Even the clinic joined in on the celebration.
“I was really surprised when I saw she had a positive pregnancy,” Desai stated. “This has been one of the real miracles in our IVF program.”
Jennifer had a pretty normal pregnancy – some morning sickness was her biggest complaint. Kenely did have to be delivered by C-section because she was breech, but other than that, she was a beautiful, healthy baby girl born on April 20th, 2011.
Now nine months old, Jason and Jennifer can’t help but be amazed at the wonderful miracle that is their daughter.
“It’s crazy. Sometimes I’m like, ‘Did we cheat?’” Jennifer said. “People ask if we’re going to have another child, but we made it this far to get her. I don’t know if I even want to press my luck.”
And while the Schiraldi family doesn’t plan to have any more children, they hope that their story can help encourage other couples faced with male fertility problems.
“People think once you’re stuck, you’re stuck,” Jason stated. “But there are people who can make wonderful things happen.”

Junk Food Shown To Cause Infertility In Younger Men

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

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

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

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?

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

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

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.