Harvard Study Links Marijuana to Increased Sperm Count
Marijuana is the most commonly used drug worldwide, but even as access to legal weed improves, researchers are still teasing out the long-term health outcomes.
The trouble is, not all of the results match up, and this makes it difficult for users to make informed decisions. For men who smoke marijuana and are planning on having children, the advice keeps getting more confusing.
A 2015 study found that Danish men who smoked marijuana more than once a week had lower sperm counts. In addition, a study from last year found that marijuana’s active ingredient, THC, can change the structure and development of a sperm’s DNA.
Whether those changes can be passed on to a child remains unknown, but for now, some researchers are warning that men in their childbearing years should consider how weed might impact their fertility and possibly their offspring.
Nevertheless, because much of this research is based on animal models and those with histories of drug abuse, the average pot smoker still can’t be sure there’s anything sinister to worry about.
A long-term study from Harvard University has now placed this past research on even shakier ground, tipping the equation in the exact opposite direction.
Examining more than a thousand semen samples from 662 men between 2000 and 2017, the researchers found something unexpected.
The men who admitted to smoking marijuana at some point in their life seemed to have higher concentrations of sperm than those who had never had a puff.
read the full article at ScienceAlert
