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  • Can Marijuana Help Gen Z’s Fertility Concerns

    Can Marijuana Help Gen Z’s Fertility Concerns

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    Each generation has a variety of concerns, but a big surprise is the amount of Gen Z’ers who are now worried about fertility. According to surveys, nearly half of Gen Z is worried about their fertility despite not currently trying to conceive. The Centers for Disease Control defines infertility as “not being able to get pregnant after one+ year of unprotected sex.” According to a report published by the World Health Organization (WHO), “Around 17.5% of the adult population experience infertility.”

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    Previous generations worried about fertility when it came time to have children, Gen Z sees it part of their future path. They are fretting about becoming pregnant at 35 when they are 25. When deciding to have kids later, they want to know what to do now so they can have what they want then. Can marijuana help Gen Z’s fertility concerns?

    Photo by Anastasiia Chepinska via Unsplash

    With alcohol it is clear chronic alcohol exposure can cause problems with fertility in both men and women. For men, it can lead to damaged sperm and for women, it may affect the ability to conceive. While actively receiving medical treatments to get pregnant, alcohol can reduce a woman’s chance.

    For women, frequent use of marijuana can cause issues which could tamp down fertility. Consuming as often as three times per week may have impacts says a report published in Fertility & Sterility Science.  Evidence suggests marijuana can reduce female fertility by disrupting hypothalamic release of gonadotropin releasing hormone (GnRH), leading to reduced estrogen and progesterone production and anovulatory menstrual cycles. It can also delay or inhibit ovulation. For men, data showed current or past marijuana users had more damaged sperm, lower sperm counts and reduced semen volume.

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    But can worrying and the constant anxiety around it affect the outcome? While it’s unlikely stress alone cause infertility, stress interferes with a woman’s ability to get pregnant. Research has shown that women with a history of depression are twice as likely to experience infertility. Anxiety also can prolong the time needed to achieve pregnancy.

    While more research needs to be done, managing stress may improve fertility.

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    Amy Hansen

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  • Extra-Strong Sperm Uses IUD As Pull-Up Bar

    Extra-Strong Sperm Uses IUD As Pull-Up Bar

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  • Most Men Who Apply to Donate Sperm Don’t Complete Process

    Most Men Who Apply to Donate Sperm Don’t Complete Process

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    Jan. 18, 2023 – Only about 4% of men who signed up to be sperm donors in the United States or Denmark completed the process and had their sperm frozen for use in medically assisted reproduction, new research reveals. 

    Some men apply online, have their sperm tested, but do not go any further in the process. Others are rejected because of low thawed sperm quality, a self-reported health condition, or from failure to pass an infectious disease test or genetic screening. 

    These low figures should not discourage men who wish to become sperm donors, says Allan Pacey, PhD, lead author of the study and professor of andrology at the University of Sheffield in the U.K. 

    “A constant supply of new donor applicants is needed. So my advice to would-be donors is don’t be put off by the low success rates,” he says. “We need men to come forward to be screened and see if sperm donation is for them.”

    The findings were published online this month in the journal Human Reproduction.

    Most previous studies focused on the safety or feasibility of using frozen sperm samples. Only a few examine the success rate for men who apply to become sperm donors. 

    The 4% figure was not unexpected for Pacey. 

    “When I ran a small sperm bank in Sheffield, we would also only accept less than 4 in 100 applicants. This shows how hard it is to pass the screening tests to become a donor,” he says. 

    But the 4 in 100 completion rate surprised Michael Thomas, MD, president of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine. 

    “Four out of one hundred is much lower than I would have expected,” he says, noting that he he tells potential sperm donors the acceptance rate is between 20% and 30%.

    A Rare Look Into the Business

    The study is worthwhile for its insight into the sperm bank business, Thomas says. 

    “The business associated with sperm donation has [not] been studied in this detail recently. It’s nice to know more about how the industry works,” he says. 

    One cautious note is that the researchers evaluated one sperm bank, Cryos International, while there are many others in the U.S. and abroad, says Thomas, who also is professor and chair of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine in Ohio. 

    “It is unclear if these study results are the same for every company,” he says. 

    “These guys were obviously very selective,” Thomas says. “The fact that the only 4% made it that tells you that they’re not just taking any person that walks in the door.”

    “It’s not the days anymore where you get college kids to come in because they want to make fifty dollars of beer money.” 

    Anonymous No More? 

    It’s also no longer a time where a majority of sperm donors are guaranteed anonymity. The popularity of commercial genetic companies like ancestry.com and 23andMe are driving this change, Thomas says. 

    “Now people are starting to find each other as far as either siblings of the same sperm donor, or other kids who were born from sperm donation. And they are asking some very tough questions — especially when it comes to their own personal genetics.” 

    As a result, “these folks who’ve never thought they would be found are starting to be found.”

    Adults who were conceived by donor are also calling for more transparency regarding their genetic connections, he notes. 

    International Insight

    The U.K. researchers focused on the U.S. and Denmark for a couple of reasons. One is that they were able to study all men who applied to Cryos International in 2018 and 2019. The study included 11,702 potential donors in the two countries.

    Also, the U.K. relies on sperm donations from the U.S. and Denmark. One government agency reports that more than half of new donor registrations in the U.K. involved international donors in 2020, for example.

    Another finding is that sperm donors who shared their identity were more likely to complete the process, 4.7%, compared to 3.2% of anonymous donors, 

    “What’s particularly fascinating is that more donors, who initially wanted to remain anonymous, were willing to be identifiable as the screening and donation process continued,” Pacey says in the release. “This is particularly good news for patients in the UK undergoing fertility treatment, as it is a legal requirement for sperm donors to be identifiable to any children born from their donations.”

    Donors in Denmark were also more likely to be ultimately approved, 6%, compared to only 1% of Americans. 

    Another take away message, Thomas says, is “that the number of sperm donors has decreased, which disadvantages same-sex couples, single women, or heterosexual couples with a male factor or genetic issue.” 

    Not discussed “is that the number of sperm donors who are of color are probably much lower than the 4 in 100,” he notes. 

    Future Directions

    Going forward, Pacey wishes to continue the research. 

    “We will hopefully be drilling into much more detail about why so many men are put off from the process and why there are differences between men in Denmark and the USA,” he says. “If we could streamline the donor recruitment processes in those two parts of the world and make them more country-specific, then we might be able to recruit a few more donors.”  

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  • There’s a Reason Sperm Swim Together

    There’s a Reason Sperm Swim Together

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    Sept. 30, 2022 — The adage that the fastest, strongest sperm is the one that fertilizes the egg is being called into question after new research suggested that teamwork is a more powerful reproductive driver than survival of the fittest.

    It is a long, challenging swim through the female reproductive tract that male sperm navigate, and they have a much better chance of reaching the egg if they swim together in clusters, report researchers from North Carolina A&T State University and Cornell University. 

    The investigators observed that sperm swim together in groups as they make their way through the thick yet elastic fluid of the cervix, uterus, and fallopian tubes on the way to the egg.

    Sperm, like schools of fish,  swim independently, but move in and out of the group along the way. To find out whether this collective swimming had any actual biological benefit, the scientists did experiments using bull sperm, which shares similar properties with human sperm.

    The sperm were placed in a device that mimicked the physical environment of the cervix and uterus, and then the scientists tested how the sperm responded when they switched up the properties of the fluid and flow. They discovered three benefits to sperm traveling in clumps instead of going it solo and published the findings in Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology.

    When the fluid is static, without any flow at all, the sperm can more effectively swim in a straight line when grouped together. At a moderate level of flow, clustering helps the sperm in aligning with one another so they can swim against the current much like a school of fish swimming upstream. When the flow is strongest, sperm are less likely to get carried away by the current if they’re swimming together.

    The researchers’ discoveries about sperm movement can be used to help better understand why sperm may not make it and how scientists can improve fertility chances in couples who are struggling to conceive. The more researchers learn about which sperm are most successful in reaching the egg, the more they can apply those discoveries to assisted reproductive technology to help people get pregnant. 

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