Category Archives: Human Reproduction

Citizens rally in the rotunda of the Utah Capitol in Salt Lake City to ask Governor Herbert to veto HB363, Wednesday, March 14, 2012.

Ravell Call, Deseret News

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As a lifelong resident of Utah, I am writing to express my concern over HB363 and am asking as a parent of teenage children that Gov. Gary Herbert please veto this sincere but misguided bill. For the past 15 years, I have taught courses on human development at a large private institution in Utah. I do not speak on behalf of my employer or its supporting institution, but as a private citizen and parent.

Part of the curriculum I teach is on human reproduction. Each semester, I take an informal survey asking how many students have talked with their parents about sex. Fewer than half of my students typically raise their hands. The reality is that many good families in Utah abdicate their role in teaching their children about sex, including the consequences and responsibilities associated with human sexuality.

My own parents waited until the night before my wedding to have a rather brief "talk" with me. While I appreciated their attempt, it came too late in my own development to help me through the confusing changes that coincide with adolescence.

Unfortunately, many youths are learning about sex from misinformed friends, media and other sources, including the Internet, where the dialogue is often devoid of any meaningful discussion about human relationships, birth control, sexually transmitted infections and the consequences of unplanned teen pregnancies. It is misguided to suggest that the absence of discussion about contraceptives, sexual intercourse and STIs in our schools is necessary or sufficient to deter kids from thinking about and engaging in sex.

A respectful dialogue on these matters may do more to appropriately encourage abstinence, especially when our children are well-informed and human sexuality is demystified for them. While it makes sense to encourage our youths to abstain, from a "public good" perspective, there is also compelling public good to arm our youths with accurate and complete information to help them make informed decisions regarding sex, especially when these decisions can have life-altering and generational consequences.

Research shows that what youth need to internalize behavioral standards is clear consistent messages coupled with adequate levels of information. This involves opportunities for a rational dialogue in which the individual child feels empowered to make informed decisions for himself or herself. Our schools are a safe place for such discussions to occur, especially in the absence of discussions in the home. An absence of any opportunity for respectful dialogue leaves open the possibility that our youth will be vulnerable to accepting the most persuasive messages they encounter, which today commonly comes in the form of popular media and friends.

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My view: Gov. Herbert should veto sex-ed bill

Everyone knows saturated fat is bad in high amounts -- it might even kill you.

Anewstudy suggeststhat fat may also damage semen quality among men.

A preliminary study published online in the medical journal Human Reproduction, suggests that men who intake higher amounts of omega-3 polyunsaturated fats, like the ones found in fish and plant oils, have better-formed sperm than those who don't.

A research team, led by Dr. Jill Attaman conducted the study, a small trialinvolving99 men in the U.S. over the course of four years.

Attamanwas a clinical and research fellow in reproductive endocrinology and infertility at Massachusetts General Hospital and an instructor in obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive biology at Harvard Medical School during the study.

The men were asked about their diets andthen separated into three groups according to the amount of fat they consumed.

Those in the highest-fat-consumption had a 43 percent lower total sperm count and 38 percent lower concentration of sperm than the men in the group who ate the least amount of fat.

Attaman suggests that the benefits of lowering the amount of fat in a man's diet extend beyond heart health.

A lower-fat diet "may not only improve their general health, but could improve their reproductive health too," she said in a statement.

One fertility specialist cautioned against relying on the findings of a study that relies on the past history of participants to diagnose their current condition.

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Fatty Foods May Damage Semen: Study

While the world continue to talk about the teaching of tolerance, global education, preparing students to become world-wise citizens, the cultivating of cosmopolitanism in human consciousness, the Malaysian public education system is still taking pride in its system of apartheid and the sustaining of educational ideology, practice, and reproduction of separateness and unequalness.

In an attempt to engineer what seems to be a successful system of failure in a hyper-modernising state that prides itself in the slogan of human capital and education for all, Malaysians seem to live with these oxymorons. In the words of George Orwell in his prophetic novel of a dystopic society of Oceania in the classic work called 1984, this means doublespeak, in which contradictions abound in the inner-workings of the conveyor belt called education.

While the world continue to talk about the teaching of tolerance, global education, preparing students to become world-wise citizens, the cultivating of cosmopolitanism in human consciousness, the Malaysian public education system is still taking pride in its system of apartheid and the sustaining of educational ideology, practice, and reproduction of separateness and unequalness.

Either ignored or plainly blindsided by her educational policymakers, multiculturalism and the infusion of the practices of multicultural education is absent, even though it is clear that politics and education cannot be taken as separate disciplines in order to understand the nature and future of national development.

Malaysias survival as a nation depends primarily on the re-crafting of an education system philosophically, systemically, and pedagogically sound enough to bridge the gaps between the socio-economic and cultural deficiencies brought about by the legacy of Mahathirism; one based on the use of race ideology to sustain control and to design hegemony of the Malay-Muslim race.

Education as the only means for personal, social, cultural, and even spiritual and ecumenical progress can only be achieved if one goes back to the its philosophical foundations and re-look at the conception of human nature itself.

In Malaysia, a legacy of British colonial policy and its tool of social reproduction, i.e. schooling, has paved the way for Malaysias neo-colonialist strategy of a hidden system of apartheid, to ensure that the races are still separated in an unequal way.

Issues and institutions in such a scenario reflect the ideology of dominance - of one race over others or the rest - blinding educationalists and policy-makers to see beyond race and religion in making sure that the gentle profession and humanistic enterprise called education is driven fundamentally by the almost ideologically-bankrupt United Malays National Organisations (Umnos) idea of education and nation-building.

Pre-schools, primary schools, secondary schools and even universities take the nature of racial educational exclusivity.

Shining examples of this apartheid-isation of education are any all-racial schools, Mara Junior Science Colleges, and the Universiti Teknologi Mara system - all these in addition to the already apartheid-ised Malaysian Civil Service, albeit de facto in nature, whose existence is shackled by the ideology of an endangered ruling class of Malay-dominated politicians, in all its ignorance of the meaning of education, claimed superior knowledge to what that enterprise solely means.

Link:
Dismantle our apartheid education

A higher intake of saturated fat damages the quality of men's sperm, according to a new study published in the online journal Human Reproduction.

The study of 99 men who attend fertility clinics, which measured fatty acid levels in sperm and seminal plasma, found that "higher total fat intake was negatively related to total sperm count and concentration."

The study's participants were 89 percent Caucasian with an average age of 36.4 years. More than 7 in 10 men in the study were obese and 61 percent never smoked.

The 33 men with the highest fat intake were found to have a sperm count 43 percent lower than those who were on better diets.

"This association was driven by the intake of saturated," the study found. "Levels of saturated fatty acids in sperm were also negatively related to sperm concentration, but saturated fat intake was unrelated to sperm levels."

Men who had a higher intake of healthy omega-3 fats was positively related to the size and shape of their sperm.

Here are five foods to keep your sperm healthy based on the study's findings:

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1. Salmon

Salmon is high in omega-3 fatty acids as well as protein.

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Diet For Super Sperm? Cut Saturated Fat, Up Omega-3 Intake: Study

Gents, if you want to make sure your swimmers are in tip top shape, you may want to reconsider tucking into the burger and fries.

In a new study published online in the journal Human Reproduction March 13, a team of US researchers found that men who consumed diets high in saturated fats had both lower total sperm count and sperm concentration.

Meanwhile, men who consumed more omega-3 fatty acids, commonly found in fish and plant oils, were found to have slightly more sperm -- about 2 percent -- compared to those with the lowest intake.

For their study, Harvard researchers questioned a group of 99 men from 2006 to 2010 about their diet and analyzed samples of their semen, measuring the levels of fatty acids in their sperm.

The participants -- 71 percent of whom were obese or overweight -- were divided into three groups.

Those in the group with the highest intake of fat had a 43 percent lower sperm count, in addition to 38 percent lower sperm concentration compared to the group who consumed the least amount of fat.

Total sperm count is defined as the total number of sperm in the ejaculate, while sperm concentration denotes the number of sperm per unit volume.

The World Health Organisation defines normal total sperm count as a minimum of 39 million. The concentration of spermatozoa should be at least 15 million per milliliter.

While the researchers acknowledge the small sample size for the study, it's not the first to provide a link between poor diet and sperm quality.

Another Harvard study conducted jointly with researchers from the University of Murcia in Spain found that eating foods high in trans fats reduced the sperm quality in even healthy young men.

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Fatty diets linked to reduced sperm quality

March 14, 2012

A new report in the journal Human Reproduction showcases a study that links fatty, high-carbohydrate diets to lower sperm counts. A better diet that included high intakes of omega-3 fatty acids, found in fish and plant oils, were associated with higher sperm concentration, reports BBC News.

The team, led by Prof Jill Attaman from Harvard Medical School in Boston, questioned 99 men about their diet and analyzed sperm samples over the course of four years.

Compared with those eating the least fat, men with the highest fat intake had a 43 percent lower sperm count and 38 percent lower sperm concentration. Men consuming the most omega-3 fatty acids had sperm with a more normal structure than men with the lowest intake.

Prof. Attaman said, the magnitude of the association is quite dramatic and provides further support for the health efforts to limit consumption of saturated fat given their relation with other health outcomes such as cardiovascular disease.

However, 71 percent of participants were overweight or obese, which could have had an impact on sperm quality. Furthermore, none of the men had sperm counts or concentrations below the normal levels defined by the World Health Organization of at least 39 million and 15 million per milliliter.

Commenting on the research, British fertility expert Dr. Allan Pacey, of the University of Sheffield, this is a relatively small study showing an association between dietary intake of saturated fats and semen quality.

Perhaps unsurprisingly there appeared to be a reasonable association between the two, with men who ate the highest levels of saturated fats having the lowest sperm counts and those eating the most omega-3 polyunsaturated fats having the highest.

Importantly, the study does not show that one causes the other and further work needs to be carried out to clarify this. But it does add weight to the argument that having a good healthy diet may benefit male fertility as well as being good general health advice.

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Junk Food Diets Linked To Low Sperm Counts