A study compared 54 men conceived with intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI, a type of in vitro fertilisation) to 57 men conceived naturally. Among the IVF group, sperm counts and motility were (on average) lower, lending support to the idea that such male fertility problems—which ICSI can overcome—can be inherited.
From the New Scientist abstract:
Intra-cytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) is a technique that injects sperm directly into an egg to fertilise it. This method is commonly used to overcome various types of male infertility – including low sperm count, abnormal sperm, or sperm that doesn't move well – and was used in about half of IVF treatments using non-frozen embryos in the UK in 2013.
Because the method can allow non-motile sperm to create an embryo, scientists have suspected that it can pass genetic causes of infertility to the next generation. Now there is some evidence that this could be the case.
Comparing 54 men who were conceived using ICSI with 57 men whose parents conceived naturally, Andre Van Steirteghem at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel in Belgium and his colleagues have found that the ICSI men had almost half the sperm concentration of the control group, and a two-fold lower count of motile sperm.
"These findings are not unexpected," says Steirteghem. "Before ICSI was carried out, prospective parents were informed that it may well be that their sons may have impaired sperm like their fathers." These parents still decided to try the technique, thinking that their sons could themselves use ICSI if necessary, he says.
coverage:
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bradley13 on Tuesday November 08 2016, @08:53AM
Because the method can allow non-motile sperm to create an embryo, scientists have suspected that it can pass genetic causes of infertility to the next generation.
Well, duh. If the cause is genetic, of course genetics will pass it to the next generation. Water is wet, news at 11.
Then they rattle on about "correlation is not causation": a stupid thing to say, since the causation (genetics) is entirely clear. Who writes this stuff?
Unfortunately, I couldn't find a link to the article itself. I would hope that the point of the study was to identify how often male infertility has a genetic cause, and how often it was something else. Unfortunately, none of the summaries make this clear.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.