KEEPING YOUR SPERM YOUNG: PRE-CONCEPTION CARE
If you are an older man thinking of a new family, it’s wise to give your sperm their best chance of success, as the following tale indicates:
The couple sitting across the desk seemed quite ordinary. The woman was in her early 20s and her husband was about 40. They were baffled. Why was she having repeated miscarriages?
They had come to a clinic that specialised in natural methods for fertility management, reproductive health and preconception care, and the young woman was distressed. She had always been healthy and had never had any reason to suspect her fertility had been compromised. Her husband had children from an earlier marriage and had no reason to suspect his fertility had been compromised either. In fact, he was convinced the problem resided with her.
While taking their histories, the clinician was alerted by the mans occupation. He was a builder who made a living renovating old inner-city houses. Often, he spent hours scraping or burning off old paint. Paint manufactured before the sixties contains lead, and with his kind of work it seemed possible that he had been exposed to high levels of the metal, not only from the paint but from the lead-laden dust that accumulates in these houses over decades.
But this man had come to the clinic essentially to support his wife and was not prepared to accept the possibility that the miscarriages could be due to him.
It is difficult for men to relinquish the notion that their sperm are invincible. The myth that sperm are resilient and divinely protected is very strong. Even men who are patently unhealthy assume that somehow their sperm remain healthy.
Men who abuse their bodies with alcohol, cigarettes or other toxins also assume these will have no effect on their sperm. So why should this man, who was fit and well and had already proved his fertility, entertain the possibility that his sperm were imperfect?
Reluctant to be investigated for infertility, the man did agree to have a hair analysis. This test can give an accurate indication of toxic metal contamination in the body. (Blood tests for lead are not reliable, as lead is passed quickly into other tissues, especially bones.)
Once the hair analysis showed very high levels of lead, he agreed to further tests, which confirmed that he had the classic sperm problems associated with lead toxicity. He had a low count with a high proportion of misshapen and less motile sperm. He was treated for this toxicity with nutritional supplements and herbal remedies, and about 10 months after their first visit, his wife conceived again. This time the pregnancy held and she produced a healthy baby.
What a man does before conception is just as important as what a woman does. His lifestyle and environment prior to conception can have a direct and profound bearing on his reproductive health and on the health of the baby.
Although one would expect the woman to have to behave more responsibly because she provides the egg and the nurturing environment, recent research challenges this. Sperm are more vulnerable than eggs because they are constantly being produced and are very much smaller. They are far more sensitive to factors such as toxicity, pollution, chemicals and radiation.
The clinic’s files were full of the records of men who had been exposed to occupational toxins that affected their fertility. Motor mechanics, for example, breathe in lead fumes all day, handle heavy metal like nuts and bolts covered in cadmium and use lots of chemical solvents.
As long as sperm are not visually defective, people think they are probably okay. But another view is that if 60 per cent are visually defective, those that remain have probably been adversely affected too. Sperm are made from nutrients, and there is no reason to assume some sperm will absorb more toxins than others.
The role played by zinc is an interesting example of how sperm are affected by a man’s general health. The tails of sperm are packet! with zinc, and if a man’s body is deficient in zinc, his sperm don’t get enough zinc either. Without sufficient zinc, sperm can’t waggle their tails, which means, in turn, that they can’t move. When an overall correction is made, a huge increase in fertility results.
Pre-conception care is an old idea that has been resurrected. Many tribal societies arc known traditionally to have fed special diets to young men and women of childbearing age.
Pre-conception care is starting to be considered an important component in the prevention of reproductive problems and the improvement of children’s health. Proper pre-conception care can make a huge contribution to the health of our population, not just by helping us produce normal-looking children but also by helping us produce children who have strong immune systems and are not affected by chronic or degenerative diseases. There is a growing recognition that this type of care is as important as, if not more important than, good antenatal care.
Clinicians point out that people who breed racehorses, champion dogs and cattle know that the best outcome is achieved when the health and vigour of both prospective parents are optimal at the time of conception. So why should the whole thing be left to chance when breeding humans?
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