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Baldness and prostate drug may increase male infertility risk

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Posted by Franco Cignelli on April 16, 2012 at 8:44 am

Male infertilityThe US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) asked the drug company Merck to extend warnings about possible sexual side effects, including male infertility, of the two drugs Propecia and Proscar.

Both of the mediations contain a main active ingredient called finasteride which reduces male hormone activity which is also associated with side effects.

The labels on both drugs will now include a description of reported cases of male infertility that improved after patients stopped taking the drug.

The new label for the baldness medicine Propecia will include libido and other sexual disorders that continued after discontinuation of the drug.

Proscar, which treats symptoms of enlarged prostate will now have a label that adds “decreased libido that continued after discontinuation of the drug.”

Labels on the two drugs already warn of thse side effects but health officials want physicians and patients to know the problems may continue to occur even after patients stop taking the medications.

“Despite the fact that clear causal links between finasteride (Propecia and Proscar) and sexual adverse events have not been established, the cases suggest a broader range of adverse effects than previously reported in patients taking these drugs,” the FDA added.

“Therefore, prescribers and patients need to be aware of them, as part of a discussion of risk and benefits of finasteride when determining the best treatment options.”

The warning may have been influenced by reported cases of infertility treatments of men who were taking the drugs.

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Male infertility testing facility in India to help hopeful parents

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Posted by Franco Cignelli on April 10, 2012 at 8:41 am

Male infertility testing facility in India to help hopeful parents

A new male infertility testing facility will be the first of its kind in India.

Health care organization, Women’s Centre and Hospital, has signed an agreement with US based SCSA Diagnostics, to offer the service.

As part of the agreement, the organization will have the Sperm Chromatin Structure Assay (SCSA) testing lab at the hospital to accurately identify men suffering from infertility problems.

SCSA is an assessment of sperm DNA fragmentation that identifies men with a highly reduced probability of establishing and supporting a successful pregnancy.

This is a welcome alternative for couples suffering unexplained infertility, as they could avoid expensive infertility treatments.

Incidents of male infertility have been increasing over recent years due in part to air pollution, insecticides, pesticides, exposure to extreme heat and/or the effects of electromagnetic waves produced from cell phones and laptops.

The SCSA test measures the percentage of sperm in a semen sample that has fragmented DNA as well as the extent of that DNA fragmentation. The test results are significantly more stable over time than results obtained by conventional semen analysis.

It’s a hopeful step in India’s efforts to combat infertility issues as a result of male infertility.

 

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A unique solution to one couple’s male infertility issues

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Posted by Franco Cignelli on March 27, 2012 at 8:28 am

Male Infertility

After three years of trying to conceive, a married couple in the Netherlands learned they couldn’t have a child because of male infertility. The man produced no sperm.

However, the couple wanted to pass on the huband’s gene pool, and did not want to use sperm donated from a stranger, but he had no brothers.

Eventually the decision was made to use sperm from the husband’s father.

As all parties were comfortable with the decision, the couple went to a fertility clinic with their request. After much deliberation, including a discussion with the hospital ethics committee, the clinic eventually decided to honor the couple’s wishes.

Couples may turn to family members to assist with reproduction for many reasons. Some, like the couple in the Netherlands, want to have a genetic tie with their child. Others may wish to cut down on the time and money needed for the procedure.

However, one concern in these situations is that the person who donates will want to act as a parent to the child.

Another concern is whether someone in the family is being manipulated or pressured to go along with the arrangement. For example, with egg donation, a daughter may feel obligated to be a traditional surrogate to her remarried mother because she is still financially dependent or because her mother is controlling.

However, in the case with the couple from the Netherlands, complications from the controversial decision have not arisen and everyone is happy with the outcome.

The case is another interesting example of male infertility and the creative solutions that couples and families will come up with to solve their fertility problems.

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15 per cent of men have varicocele, a leading cause of male infertility

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Posted by Franco Cignelli on March 20, 2012 at 8:12 am

Male Infertility

Male infertility is rarely given the attention that it deserves. When a couple is struggling to produce children, female infertility is assumed to be the leading cause. But that isn’t always the case.

In the past two years Glenda Garrido gave birth to a boy and then a girl.

“Once you have children there’s nothing like it,” said father Eddie Garrido, 42.

Yet the Garridos spent a year trying to start a family.  Eddie was diagnosed with varicocele on his left testicle, a condition in which the veins in the scrotum swell because of malfunctioning valves, causing blood to pool in the bottom of the scrotum.

In about 95 per cent of cases, varicocele occurs in the left testicle, which is where the bigger spermatic vein is.

The majority of varicocele patients are men aged 15 to 35. The condition is not related to testicular cancer and occurs in about 15 per cent of men.

Varicocele is suspected to cause infertility because the temperature in the testicle increases due to the pool of blood that collects in the scrotum.

That, in turn, decreases the sperm quality and count.

Testicles are outside the body because they need to be cooler than the body temperature to produce sperm.

There are two types of treatment: varicocele embolization and surgery.

Eddie received embolization, where a catheter is inserted in the groin. Using X-ray imaging, doctors guide the catheter into the varicocele vein, where metal coils block the blood flow into the vein.

“It was never expressed as a dangerous procedure,” Garrido said. “I thought it sounded like a quick fix.’’

In the majority of cases the patient is released from the hospital a few hours after the procedure, and in three months the testicle produces new sperm.

With surgery, doctors cut through an area in the lower abdomen until they reach the varicocele veins. They then tie the veins to stop the blood pooling, helping the blood flow into the rest of the body.

Clearly these type of procedures are less costly and risky than what female patients endure, such as in vitro fertilization. Now Eddie and Glenda are proud parents to two children, and they hope their issues with male infertility are behind them.

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VIDEO: Low or Abnormal Semen Explained

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Posted by RobynNazarRN on September 13, 2011 at 3:30 pm

This is a great new video from the Center for Human Reproduction featuring internationally recognized fertility specialist, Dr.  Norbert Gleicher. He explains all about how male infertility works in relation to abnormal or  low semen count.

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Could Sperm Donations Lead to Incest?

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Posted by RobynNazarRN on September 6, 2011 at 8:49 am

Each year hundreds of thousands of children are born as the result of sperm donations. However, some are now concerned that the lack of limits put on these donations could lead to incest.

Like many women Cynthia Daily, a social worker from Washington, used a sperm donation to conceive her son back in 1991. Sperm donations have been a popular fertility option for many years for women trying to conceive a child on their own or for couples who suffer from male infertility issues such as abnormal semen.

In a quest to help her son connect with his half-sibblings, fathered by the same donor, Daily created a website which allows registrants to submit their donor number and discover who they may be related to.

However, much to Dailys surprise, the number of her son’s sibblings has grown over the years to 150 – with more on the way.

“It’s wild when we see them all together — they all look alike,” Daily told the NYT.

Unlike in other countries, such as Britian, France, and Sweeden, the US has no limits on how many children a sperm donor can father. Medical experts are concerned that having so many children fathered by one person could raise the risk of spreading rare genetic diseases common with incest if these children were to unknowningly parter later in life. This threat is higher especially in smaller communities.

“We have more rules that go into place when you buy a used car than when you buy sperm,” said Debora L. Spar, president of Barnard College and author of “The Baby Business: How Money, Science and Politics Drive the Commerce of Conception.” “It’s very clear that the dealer can’t sell you a lemon, and there’s information about the history of the car. There are no such rules in the fertility industry right now.”

Experts are now calling for tighter regulations on the fertility industry – hoping to limit the number of children which can be born to a donor and prevent the spread of genetic diseases.

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Reversible Injectable Vasectomy? Yes Please!

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Posted by admin on July 13, 2011 at 7:44 pm

New research coming out of India may change the future of the male vasectomy.

According to the report the “vasectomy” is actually an injectible polymer called RISUG (Reversible Inhibition of Sperm Under Guidance) which coats the walls of the vas deferens. This coating kills sperm as they pass by.

The best part? If a man changes his mind and decides he would like more children the gel simply has to be flushed out and the male is fertile again.

“The fact that it does not involve cutting a body part and throwing a piece away carries a lot of psychological impact,” said Sujoy K. Guha professor of biomedical engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology and inventor of the RISUG. “That is one of the very major appeal points of RISUG. The second, of course, is the potential of reversal.”

Guha and his team of researchers have been working on this development for over 30 years. In fact some men have already been using the RISUG without complication for the last 15 years. With stage III clinical trials already underway in India it may potentially receive approved for distribution in India as early as 2012.

Fortunately, this great new technique may reach Americans as well. The Lissner’s Parsemus Foundation from San Francisco has been helping get the RISUG into clinical trials in the US under the name Vasalgel.

The biggest setback for the Foundation in getting Vasalgel and RISUG going has been funding. They are still short $4 million of what they need to get all the way through the approval process.

A reversible vasectomy would be a huge advancement as many men choose not to have the procedure for fear of male infertility.

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Male Infertility Tied to Cell Phone Use

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Posted by RobynNazarRN on May 20, 2011 at 3:08 pm

Male infertility due to poor sperm quality could be linked to cell phone use, says a new study from Canadian researchers.
Researchers at Queen’s University in Canada looked at the amount of time men spend talking on their cell phones and hormone levels related to male infertility. They hypothesized that the electromagnetic waves that are emitted from cell phones may have an effect on male hormone levels – and what they found was surprising.
Men who reported the most cell phone use had higher levels of testosterone, which is needed for healthy sperm production. However, they also had the lowest amount of lutenizing hormone, which is also essential for sperm production.

“Our findings were a bit puzzling,” says Rany Shamloul, co-author on the study. “We were expecting o find different results, but the results we did find suggest that there could be come intriguing mechanisms at work.”

Shamloul and his colleagues believe that perhaps the cell phone acts on a brain in such as way to increase the number of cells in the testes that produce testosterone (hence the increase in circulating testosterone), but at the same time decreases the amount of LH being secreted by the pituitary glad located in the brain. Furthermore, despite the excess testosterone the researchers believe that the excess circulating testosterone is not the potent form that is need for male infertility, but rather the EMW blocks the ability for this testosterone to convert to its more potent, and fertile, form.

The end results, the researchers warn, could be low sperm quality and increased risk for male infertility.

Both low sperm quality and low semen volume are two factors that greatly affect the reproductive potential of a man.

Male infertility: What are the most common causes?

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What An Abnormal Semen Analysis May Mean for You

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Posted by RobynNazarRN on May 2, 2011 at 8:02 pm

Preparing for a semen analysis is one of those uncomfortable life moments that Hollywood loves to exploit on the big screens. The typical scene plays out with a red-faced male character who is uncomfortably sitting in sterile medical room with a plastic cup in hand, trying unsuccessfully to prepare himself to deposit a semen sample into the requested receptacle. Smirks aside, what Hollywood typically doesn’t depict is the mental preparation that men go through when faced with having to preform this type of fertility test. Abnormal semen analysis results may bring upon many questions and challenges for men and understanding what abnormal results really mean may help men with the mental preparation for this test.

What Is a Semen Analysis For?

A semen analysis is typically the first line of testing done to determine any problems that a man may have with infertility. Typically, if a man and a woman under 35 years of age have been trying unsuccessfully to conceive a child for more that one year a fertility specialist will order a male semen analysis. This test my also be ordered if a man has a history of varicocele which is an abnormal enlargement of veins in the scrotum which can cause discomfort and sometimes infertility.

What Is the Doctor Looking for in a Semen Analysis?

A semen analysis looks at several different components of the semen. These include:

  • Concentration of sperm
  • Shape of the sperm
  • Mobility of the sperm
  • Volume of semen produced per ejaculation
  • How quickly the semen transforms from a gel to a liquid
  • The pH, or acidity, of the semen
  • Number of white blood cells present in semen
  • Amount of a sugar, called frutcose, in semen.

Although each of these different factors are important, the fertility specialist is most interested in the top three: concentration, shape and mobility of the sperm. Each of these components help fertility experts determine whether or not the sperm is functioning properly. If all of these three factors are normal, then it is more than likely that the sperm are able to travel to and fertilize an egg.

What If I Have An Abnormal Semen Analysis?

An abnormal semen analysis is when one or more of the components listed above are not within expected ranges. If this happens, you will likely be asked to repeat the analysis two more times as different samples can vary at different times depending on how long it took to transport the sample, temperature of the semen, medications, or other conditions. If repeat samples continue to produce abnormal semen analysis results then further work up may be needed to determine how this will affect the man’s fertility.

Low semen count, also called oligospermia, is the number one cause of male infertility and therefore the most common abnormal finding in a semen analysis. This can be caused by many different factors including varicoceles, hormonal insufficiency, genetic abnormalities (Kleinefelter syndrome) or structural obstructions.

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Lab Created Sperm May Be New Male Infertility Treatment

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Posted by RobynNazarRN on March 24, 2011 at 12:41 pm

Researchers in Japan have been able to create healthy functioning sperm cells from testicular tissue, according to a new report released in today’s journal issue of Nature. This could be a major breakthrough in the treatment of male infertility due to low sperm counts.

Scientists have been trying to create sperm in a lab setting for over 100 years, but this is the first time that it has actually not only worked, but produced healthy offspring. “The report is quite exciting because it represents the fulfillment of a goal held by many reproductive biologists over many years,” says Mary Ann Handel, an expert in reproductive genetics at the Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor, Maine.

The scientists used testicular tissue from mice to create sperm in vitro. Although the science has only been used in mice so far, researcher believe that it can be reproduced in other mammalian species such as humans.

This breakthrough could be a significant for men who suffer from abnormal sperm or low sperm counts which prevent them from being able to have children of their own. Current treatments available, which include medications and surgery, are not effective in all cases. The option for men to recreate healthy sperm in a lab would bring a major change to male infertility treatment.

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