SpainFertility

 A new study by researchers in the US revealed that healthy men who have a diet low in foliate have a higher risk of chromosomal abnormalities in their sperm. Chromosomal abnormalities in sperm are known to cause a range of congenital conditions such as Down syndrome and learning and development disorders.
            The study is the work of scientists at the University of California (UC), Berkeley, and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and is published in the 19th March issue of the journal Human Reproduction.
            Women of childbearing age are encouraged to maintain a healthy intake of foliate because it is essential for healthy fetal development, and to prevent neural tube birth defects such as spinal bifida or anencephaly (severe type of brain damage). That is why folic acid is now added to bread, cereal, flour and other grain products in the US.
But this is the first study to suggest that foliate intake in men may affect their children.
            Paternal diet affects sperm count and motility, which is important for conception, but this new study takes it further to say that male diet may be important for healthy offspring as well
            The results of the study showed that men who reported the highest foliate intake had a 19 per cent lower rate of aneuploidic sperm that men with moderate foliate intake, and 20 per cent lower than men with the lowest foliate intake.
            This information will help set dietary foliate levels that may reduce the risk of miscarriage or birth defects linked to the fathers.
            If further research supports these findings, the researchers suggest it might be a good idea to increase the current recommended 400 micro grams daily allowance of foliate for men hoping to become dads.

Men that smoke, drink heavily or are exposed to pesticides while trying to have a baby could harm generations of offspring, according to specialists. The researchers studied animals and found abnormalities caused by environmental toxins that were produced by genetic changes passed on through generations. Smoking, drinking alcohol and consuming cocaine were found to cause chemical changes to semen.

“If I were a young man I would not drink heavily and I would not be smoking two packs of cigarettes per day while trying to conceive a child”, said Dr Cynthia Daniels of Rutgers University. “Studies have shown significant associations between male toxic exposures and increased rates of infertility, miscarriage, stillbirth and childhood health problems”, continued Dr Daniels.

A study carried out by Dr Matthew Anway, of the University of Idaho, USA, showed that the genetic changes caused by a pesticide, injected on female rats daily while pregnant, were passed on through four generations when the male offspring mated with healthy females.

Dr Anway said that “in addition to the spermatogenic and prostate abnormalities, trans-generational effects on numerous disease states were observed, including tumour development and kidney disease.”

The specialist claimed that the doses used in the experiments exceeded the levels of those that humans could expect to be exposed to in the environment, but that the study was designed to show the way toxins could lead to inheritable abnormalities.

Dr Gladys Friedler, of the Boston University School of Medicine, said: “Both animal and epidemiological studies demonstrate that paternal exposure to a variety of potential toxins can adversely impact fetal development, produce a wide spectrum of deficits in offspring and be expressed in subsequent generations.”

         Spain is the european leader in fertility treatment for women older than 35 years old, with 45.3 % of women treated, above other countries such as UK (40.9%), Germany (40.6%), Italy (40%) or France (33.9%). Moreover, according to gynaecologist Ernesto Bosch, from the Instituto Valenciano de Infertilidad (IVI), around 30 % of these women are older than 40 years old. Bosch is one of the specialists involved in Merck Serono´s new ovarian stimulation treatment, “Pergoveris”.

Dr Bosch affirms that Spanish women are, on an average of 31 years old, the eldest in age that visit experts in fertility. The fact is that Spain is the European country with the most women around 35 and where women become mothers later in life, which makes it harder for them to get pregnant, since after 30, women’s eggs are “fewer and poorer in quality”, according to the expert.

“Pergoveris” provides, as Dr Bosch puts it, “a tool” to optimize the techniques used to achieve pregnancies in more mature women: the hormones combination that “Pergoveris” allows makes getting better quality eggs easier.

“Production of FSH and LH hormones in women diminishes with the proximity of menapause and the combination of both hormones facilitates ovarian stimulation in the patient, increasing success rates in between eight and ten points”, states Dr Bosch. Between 3 and 5 % of the nearly 50,000 births per year in Spain - about 1,500- are achieved trough in vitro fertilization.

 The Reproduction Institute CEFER of Barcelona, directed by Dr Simón Marina, has organized the first Egg Bank in Spain. The first five babies from frozen eggs have been born already.

Egg freezing is essential to preserve young women’s fertility when they need to have medical procedure that will possibly render them sterile. Egg freezing before starting therapy will allow these women to get pregnant in the future with their own eggs.

Also, couples that don’t wish their embryos to be frozen without having to discard part of the eggs obtained after the ovaries stimulation can take advantage of this procedure. Frozen donated eggs also allow a better selection of a donor for a couple, since they can choose from frozen eggs from a larger number of available donors.

Currently there are more than 500 frozen eggs in CEFER Reproduction Institute. This, along with the great availability of egg donors, makes it possible to avoid waiting lists, so that any couple that want to have children can make their dreams reality sooner.

Moreover, the Institute is equipped with a Sperm Bank, a traditional Egg Bank and Embryo Bank, which makes it possible to attend a wide variety of cases: couples that want to have children and can only achieve it using one of the methods provided.