Men risk having children with defects - Damaged sperm
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Men risk having children with defects - Damaged sperm
Date:
Thur, 17 Oct 2002
From:
Stephen Tvedten <steve@getipm.com>
Organization: Get Set Inc. (www.getipm.com)
To: Paul Helliker <phelliker@cdpr.ca.gov>
Director, State of California, Department of Pesticide
Regulation
cc: Christine Whitman whitman.christine@epa.gov
Wednesday, October 16, 2002 - National Post - Men risk having children with defects - Damaged sperm by Joseph Brean.
By the time a man is 35, his sperm have naturally degenerated so much that he risks endowing his children with genetic defects, such as malformed teeth or asymmetrical limbs, according to research presented yesterday.
Unlike most other cells in the body, sperm cells cannot repair the genetic damage that comes naturally with age. In younger men, this damage is offset by an ability to weed out most damaged sperm in a process called "apoptosis," commonly known as cell suicide. But around 35, when sperm damage reaches a significant level, men begin to lose their ability to carry out this genetic house-cleaning, the research shows.
Men who father children past their mid-30s, then, have more damaged sperm, which can nonetheless fertilize an egg, pass on the genetic damage, and often resulting in miscarriages or deformities.
"The bottom line is if we want to have a healthy child, we must have early-age reproduction," said Dr. Narendra Singh, a research assistant professor of bioengineering at the University of Washington in Seattle. He presented his work yesterday at the annual meeting of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine.
In a study of 60 men aged 22 to 60, all of whom had healthy sperm counts, Dr. Singh's team observed a steady increase with age, starting in the mid-30s, in both the number of broken DNA strands and the extent of the damage.
"It's very hard to put a number on DNA breaks," Dr. Singh said. "The only thing I can say is that they are very significant, statistically significant."
"As we grow old, we cannot eliminate those bad cells and they have equal chance to fertilize the ovum, which is not what we want for the future generations," he said, noting that the age of the mother also plays a crucial role in the health of a child.
The ray of hope for the would-be father in his 30s is that, although most cells in the body suffer damage to their DNA strands, the extent of it in sperm is largely determined by environmental factors.
Pesticides, gasoline products, radiation, paints and solvents, even soya, caffeine and beer have been fingered as the more common culprits that speed along genetic degeneration in sperm cell.
© Copyright 2002 National Post
http://www.canada.com/hamilton/news/story.asp?id={28BB2AF8-E836-415E-A1F4-4C5F621DCA3B}
Quotes to Ponder:
"The first task is population control at home. How do we go about it? Many of my colleagues feel that some sort of compulsory birth regulation would be necessary to achieve such control. One plan often mentioned involves the addition of temporary sterilants to water supplies or staple food. Doses of the antidote would be carefully rationed by the government to produce the desired population size." — Paul Ehrlich, The Population Bomb, p.135
"A total population of 250-300 million people, a 95% decline from present levels, would be ideal." — Ted Turner - CNN founder and UN supporter - quoted in the The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor, June '96
"Childbearing [should be] a punishable crime against society, unless the parents hold a government license ... All potential parents [should be] required to use contraceptive chemicals, the government issuing antidotes to citizens chosen for childbearing." — David Brower - first Executive Director of the Sierra Club; founder of Friends of the Earth; and founder of the Earth Island Insitute - quoted by Dixie Lee Ray, Trashing the Planet, p.166
"Truth is not what is; truth is what people perceive it to be." -- Adolf Hitler, Propaganda Maxim
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