For comparison, alcohol is well known to have a dramatic impact on both sperm and testosterone production once you exceed a fairly modest threshold (5 drinks/week):
Those phytoestrogens play some interesting games. As does a liver with damage caused by alcohol. Add to this the irony of all the advertising around beer being a predominantly "man's drink" and it gets even more interesting.
This makes me wonder strongly what you would consider a significant amount of alcohol consumption, because 5 drinks/week seems like a huge amount to me already.
Where on earth do you live? Looking at some stats, that number was the average for the UAE in 2016. At this time it was illegal to drink without a license, and Muslims could not obtain these at all.
Why? An erection is just a natural delivery mechanism, no measure of healthy, or rather fertile sperm. Besides that Weed tends to give me a real hard boner.
It's not a huge figure though: a glass of wine with dinner most nights, or a couple of brewskis with boys on Fri & Sat night. For men, the bar for "heavy" drinking is 15+ drinks/week.
> Current research suggests that cannabis may negatively impact male fertility. Further studies are needed to validate that robust findings in animal models will carry over into human experience.
My takeaway: if you are having trouble reproducing, and/or your doctor finds some anomalies in a full fertility workup, you may want to talk about your marijuana use with them. That's about it.
If you read that in context, it's clear that the qualification only applies to some of the results they're reporting:
The strongest evidence of cannabis induced alterations in male fertility is in the category of semen parameters. Research supports a role for cannabis in reducing sperm count and concentration, inducing abnormalities in sperm morphology, reducing sperm motility and viability, and inhibiting capacitation and fertilizing capacity. Animal models demonstrate a role for cannabis in testicular atrophy, and reduced libido and sexual function but to our knowledge these results have not yet been replicated in human studies.
"These results" clearly refers to the animal model studies they mention later, so that caveat does not apply to the "strongest evidence" they lead with, about sperm motility and viability, etc. At least not to judge by the abstract.
> My takeaway: if you are having trouble reproducing, and/or your doctor finds some anomalies in a full fertility workup, you may want to talk about your marijuana use with them. That's about it.
You should discuss all use of non-prescribed drugs with your doctor on a routine basis.
Absolutely; in my experience, they always ask (you probably won't have to be the one that brings it up). Healthcare is expensive, at least get your money's worth!
In Norway, admitting usage of recreational cannabis to your doctor is likely to result in your driver's license being suspended as they are known to forward the information on to police.
Medical and therapeutic marijuana has a wide range of benefits, from depression to Parkinson to glaucoma.
Since your understanding of marijuana usage seems limited to recreational usage and you pejoratively call the consumers "potheads", I'd suggest you turn to the scientific literature, conclusively applied as policy in a growing number of countries, and confront your views to what you'd read.
To be frank, you sound pretty ignorant with this comment. I'm sure you didn't intend such but any modern perspective puts weed as a safer alternative to alcohol and a social indulgence used by many extremely successful people. This also ignores all of the medical uses which alone make it worth studying.
I think this explains the sudden rush to legalize marijuana - if you can’t jail the pot heads then keep them from breeding! Solves multiple problems and so simple I’m surprised Nixon didn’t do this in the 70s.
In most recreationally legal states, the legalization laws came from direct democracy with the people who would not be involved with any convoluted goal aside from the stated goal on the ballot. There is nothing a governor or representative could do.
The people decided that jail was a counterproductive public policy measure and the people decided that the supply chain could be controlled to protect consumers.
This concept will likely to be extended to most of the schedule, a new framework is necessary as prohibition is being repealed, again.
Yeah, when we wanted to have a kid I quit cannabis and hot-tubbing for 6 months in anticipation of conceiving. It worked, and she's healthy! Sample size of 1, but it felt like kind of a nice way to commit to a family and get in the proper head space anyways.
Tangential addendum: I used to smoke pot all the time. From my mid-teens to mid-twenties. At least once a day, increasing over time to 3-5-∞ times a day. In the last year, I have significantly reduced my marijuana usage to less than once a week. My mental health has benefitted tremendously (also thanks to a great therapist!). I sleep better, I eat less shitty food, I enjoy sex more, I feel overall more equipped to handle my daily life and be an adult. I only date people of the same sex, so standard reproduction isn't a big concern for me; but if you're a pothead like I was (am?)--there's a lot more to reflect on than your sperm count. :)
I think a lot of pro cannabis people are out of balance with viewing the negative side effects. It's a drug and has side-effects. It's much safer than tobacco and alcohol but it certainly has side effects including a strong psychological addiction potential.
We don't have a mature culture around cannabis usage. Alcohol has this benefit, and we have some social norms on how to enjoy it. A big one is the "don't drink before 5" adage. Norms like this for weed will develop in time, I'm sure.
Smoking cannabis 8 times a day in not being "pro" cannabis.
Not wanting to get incarcerated for life for possession of few grams of a plant is "pro" cannabis.
i don't understand this cannabis-is-safer-than-alcohol myth. for example, i know people that have an extremely low mental tolerance for cannabis while functioning completely normal on a bottle of beer a day. also, i think that it is fairly well known that cannabis has a worrying correlation with schizophrenia [0]
Readit News
https://pathfertility.com/how-does-alcohol-affect-male-ferti...
> 5 drinks/week
This makes me wonder strongly what you would consider a significant amount of alcohol consumption, because 5 drinks/week seems like a huge amount to me already.
So I don't get your point?
> Current research suggests that cannabis may negatively impact male fertility. Further studies are needed to validate that robust findings in animal models will carry over into human experience.
My takeaway: if you are having trouble reproducing, and/or your doctor finds some anomalies in a full fertility workup, you may want to talk about your marijuana use with them. That's about it.
The strongest evidence of cannabis induced alterations in male fertility is in the category of semen parameters. Research supports a role for cannabis in reducing sperm count and concentration, inducing abnormalities in sperm morphology, reducing sperm motility and viability, and inhibiting capacitation and fertilizing capacity. Animal models demonstrate a role for cannabis in testicular atrophy, and reduced libido and sexual function but to our knowledge these results have not yet been replicated in human studies.
"These results" clearly refers to the animal model studies they mention later, so that caveat does not apply to the "strongest evidence" they lead with, about sperm motility and viability, etc. At least not to judge by the abstract.
You should discuss all use of non-prescribed drugs with your doctor on a routine basis.
Since your understanding of marijuana usage seems limited to recreational usage and you pejoratively call the consumers "potheads", I'd suggest you turn to the scientific literature, conclusively applied as policy in a growing number of countries, and confront your views to what you'd read.
The people decided that jail was a counterproductive public policy measure and the people decided that the supply chain could be controlled to protect consumers.
This concept will likely to be extended to most of the schedule, a new framework is necessary as prohibition is being repealed, again.
How does this affect fertility?
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat-based_contraception
I initially read that as a side effect of not smoking weed anymore.
[0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7442038/
When my cousin stopped cold turkey, his speech/thoughts pace was a solid 50% up. It was surreal.
It just might be that BM was having a lot more sex than the average guy.
Probability alone would account for 12 (or 22) children.
The rate he went through groupies I would expect 100+