Study: Men Who Smoke Weed May Have Sperm Count Reduced By 'Quite A Lot'
DENVER (CBS4) - Put down that joint. A new study finds that marijuana can lower men's sperm count by nearly one-third.
Researchers from the University of Copenhagen in Denmark told LiveScience that men who smoke weed more than once a week have sperm counts that were 29 percent lower than those that did not smoke, or used it less frequently.
The amount of reduction in sperm count "was quite a lot," study author Tina Kold Jensen told LiveScience.
Researchers also found that sperm concentrations were 28 percent lower in men who smoked more than once a week.
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Researchers believe the sperm count reduction in men who smoked marijuana has to do with how THC interacts with certain receptors in the testes.
The study was conducted among 1,215 Danish men between the ages of 18 to 28. According to LiveScience, those men who smoked pot and used other drugs had their sperm counts reduced by 55 percent, and sperm concentrations reduced by 52 percent.
"We cannot exclude the possibility that the men who used marijuana generally have an unhealthier lifestyle and health behavior, which may also affect their semen quality and hormone levels," researchers told LiveScience.
The study was published in the American Journal of Epidemiology.