Traditional ‘knowledge’ about male potency has always discouraged the smoking of anything, assuming wrongly that the smoking of cannabis is just an irresponsible act of killing off your sperm as if you were smoking cigarettes.
I can even remember being berated by a friend that said I needed to stop smoking weed if I wanted to get my partner pregnant. Well, I didn’t stop, and she did get pregnant.
New research which backs this up is in from Harvard. In their study, involving 600 couples who visited fertility clinics in the US, research showed that the sperm of cannabis users had a higher sperm count than non-cannabis users.
The study also found that among those who smoked cannabis, the more they smoked the higher their serum testosterone levels was.
1143 samples of semen were collected between the years 2000 and 2017 from mostly Caucasian men with an average age of 36. Figures from the World Health Organisation state that a healthy sperm count for a male would be 15 million sperm per millilitre, on average.
The sperm from cannabis users had a sperm count of 62.7 million sperm per millilitre. That’s over four times as potent as ‘normal’ is expected to be.
Doctor’s are not recommending cannabis as a fertility treatment (what a surprise) but these figures speak for themselves. There may be other explanations, apparently:
“An equally plausible interpretation is that our findings could reflect the fact that men with higher testosterone levels are more likely to engage in risk-seeking behaviours, including smoking marijuana.”
According to Dr Feiby Nassan.
We’re not convinced that this is the best explanation of the facts, this seems to be more of the medical profession putting down the potentially amazing health benefits of cannabis without evidence. Again.
Nassan’s opinion actually contradicts numerous other pieces of scientific research that clearly demonstrate that the endocannabinoid system has an important role to play in the human body regulating fertility. One study in particular shows that spermatozoa does indeed contain endocannabinoids and they play a very significant part in the whole reproduction process:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/08/160830121726.htm
“Endogenous cannabinoids that occur in both the male and the female genital tract activate the spermatozoa: they trigger the so-called acrosome reaction, during which the spermatozoon releases digestive enzymes and loses the cap on the anterior half of its head. Without this reaction, spermatozoa cannot penetrate the ovum”
Other research shows that sperm is actually activated by endocannabinoids:
So it would appear that cannabis does have a huge role to play in human reproduction.
However, there have also been studies showing a negative effect. One found a decrease in sperm count in Danish men who smoked cannabis more than once a week; while another 2018 study found that THC can alter sperm DNA and structure.
More investigation is without a doubt needed into this phenomenon and now that cannabis is being rescheduled by the World Health Organisation perhaps we will actually get it.