For decades anti-marijuana and even pro-marijuana advocates have repeated a narrative about the potentially negative effects associated with smoking marijuana and the male sperm count. Smoking weed, we were told, decreases your ability to produce sperm. However, an extensive study published by none other than Harvard researchers this week, reveals quite the opposite may be happening.
The study, titled: Marijuana smoking and markers of testicular function among men from a fertility centre, was published on Wednesday in the journal Human Reproduction. The study posed the question of “Is marijuana smoking associated with semen quality, sperm DNA integrity or serum concentrations of reproductive hormones among subfertile men?”
The answer was surprising as it directly contradicted their expected result based on previously held beliefs and found that marijuana use did indeed appear to have a positive effect on sperm count.
“Our findings were contrary to what we initially hypothesized,” said Feiby Nassan, Ph.D., the study’s lead author and research fellow at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
