|
Dude, Where's my Sperm?
|
|
By matt, Section Sci-Tech
Posted on Tue Oct 21st, 2003 at 08:22:38 AM PDT
|
 |
|
When I was a kid, there was a public service announcement on television that featured an angry father confronting his stoner kid about the drugs he'd found, presumably in the youngster's bedroom. "Who taught you how to do this stuff!?" that father screams.
"You, alright? I learned if from watching you," the teen replies, cuing the now-familiar-voiceover about how parents who use drugs have kids who use drugs.
Sure.
But what if using these drugs could keep you from having children? And what if the drug that did that was as innocuous as marijuana? Lani J. Burkman, PhD, director of andrology at the University of Buffalo School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences says that just may be what's going on.
|
| According to a recently published study, Dr. Burkman has deduced that smoking pot can reduce the fertility in sperm, even if said weed was smoked by the woman. It's not that it actually kills the sperm as some drugs or chemical might do, but rather that it caused the sperm to "party hard", after which they are too exhausted to actually do the work of impregnation.
In other words, smoking pot not only makes you lazy, it makes your sperm lazy.
But take heart, gentle stoners, for there is another study published the very next day reporting that drinking coffee may increase male fertility. Featuring a bit about the earlier pot news, the article details how drinking a few cups of coffee a day can improve your chances of impregnation (apparently only for the men, alas).
Even if you're the ultimate stoner, however, some say God can apparently help you get your little soldiers moving for Christ. Their eyes have seen the glory of the coming of someone, and it didn't knock anyone up, probably because they'd already been rendered infertile. But that doesn't stop them from praying for fertility! You can join, too, for only $10! But you're not allowed to use birth control. No word on if pot counts, though.
Of course, drug use doesn't affect fertility directly in all cases. Take the wacky Chinese. They weren't content just to put a man in space. They decided that they also needed to pioneer babies with three parents, using advanced genetic engineering. They must've been smoking something, because the pregnancy ended in miscarried twins. Dr. Frankenstein was unavailable for comment.
|
|
|
