You can almost hear them ranting, "You want us in? You want us out? What?!"
A small pilot study is telling guys who want to be fertile to stay out of hot water.
Even sweeter, the lead author of the study, University of California-San Francisco urologist Paul J. Turek MD, tells men in this PR to "...treat your body like a temple..."
Paul J. Turek MD
(photo courtesy of UCSF)
I have a second grader, a boy. Great kid. Likes swimming in the pool and Gulf, among other activities. Hates hot water, if I can use our regular squabbles about bath-time as a criterion to judge. So, like lots of boys, I presume from other parents' whines, my son's being raised to associate maternal control and related emotional stress with dousing one's body in hot water.
Later on, he could be told by some nice woman wanting a baby from him to stay out of the tub.
And to treat his body like a temple.
Better her than me.
So -- for those of you men who are ready for some back-up to the frequently heard wives' tales about heat and related male fertility... This one was just published in a Brazilian urology journal (you can actually access the entire study report in PDF format for no charge), and authored by several repro urology minded researchers in both UCSF and Chaim Sheba Medical Center in Israel. Yes, it's small -- 11 subjects -- but it's always encouraging to see positive news about non-medical interventions that can help out the baby-making cause.
Their finding:
... that when men who are accustomed to dunking their bods in hot water -- via hot tubs and long baths for 30 minutes or more weekly -- cease said dips for three to six months, their sperm increase in number and motility. Significantly, as in a mean of 34 percent for those who did respond to the intervention. The authors believe that for those whose sperm did not respond favorably, the culprit was likely that they were all heavy cigarette smokers, a known gonadotoxic factor.
Guys. Treat your bodies like temples. Someone might worship you for it later.
Link: UCSF News Office - Hot tubs hurt fertility, UCSF study shows.
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