Monday, January 17, 2011

Sperm not up to the job?


We know that sperm are very susceptible to damage! Taking up to four months to form, they're adversely affected by a host of dietary, lifestyle and environmental factors. Alcohol, cigarettes, exposure to chemicals and heavy metals, heat, tight underpants and nutritional deficits are all well documented to compromise sperm health. The good news is - remove all the bad guys during that four month period and add all the factors that are known to improve sperm health and voila - much healthier and more robust little swimmers. But now, a study from the Queen's Medical Research Institute in Edinburgh gives men with poor quality sperm something else to think about. Richard Sharpe, a fertility researcher at the Institute has demonstrated that male sperm production could be more affected by the lifestyle choices that his mother made when he was in the womb than by his own. 

''There is growing evidence that prenatal exposures of males - which are reflective of maternal lifestyle and exposures - can have a major impact on capacity to produce sperm in adulthood,'' Sharpe said.

I've got this thought to add - women taking the oral contraceptive pill right up to the time of conception expose the developing embryo to a zinc-deficient environment. Because of testicular tissue - baby boys require five times more zinc for their development than baby girls. 

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