Second Hand Smoke Goes After Your SPERM

Smoking, smoking, smoking.

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How many of our friends smoke? And fathers, brothers, uncles, and of course, some female members of the family too.

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We all know the effect of smoking. Cigarette smoke contains over 4000 chemicals. Nicotine makes you addicted to smoking, and it's really really bad for you. Seriously. We already know about the lung destruction and the possibility of cancer. But the chemicals from tobacco smoking get into many places other than the lungs via the bloodstream. And your blood basically transports all these chemicals all over your body, including your balls.

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Smoking causes reduced sperm motility, increased DNA damage, and abnormal chromosomes. The DNA damage and chromosomal abnormalities can be transmitted to your offspring, resulting in irreversible genetic changes. Smoking has even been linked with an increased risk of childhood cancer.

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That's what would happen to first hand smokers. What about second hand smokers?

A group of researchers took a bunch of mice and channeled mainstream smoke(first hand smoke) and sidestream smoke(second hand smoke) at them. They got smoke exposure for 2 weeks and a sperm sample was taken 6 weeks later.

As expected, the result shows that a lot of mutation occurred on the sperms, which proves that the effect of sucking in second hand smoke is somewhat close to the effect of inhaling first hand smoke.

Image: onlineclinic.net

So, we're pretty much screwed. We're already living in an age where pollution threatens to kill our little swimmers. Workplace stress kills our sperms, too. Now if you have smoking friends or you're a smoker yourself, your little buddies are most likely doomed.

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Malcolm
info: http://scientopia.org/blogs/scicurious/2011/08/17/and-then-the-smokers-came-for-your-sperm/