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Men should abstain from drinking at least three months prior to conceiving

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Re: Men should abstain from drinking at least three months prior to conceiving

#101
post #87

Does nobody question how they get from a non-preregistered, 9-mouse study (where the treatment group gets only 6%-10% acoholic drinks and nothing non-alcoholic for 10 weeks) to this headline? Addtionally: > First, we did not generate offspring using the cessation males. Therefore, we do not know if the sperm noncoding RNA signature we identified correlates with changes in offspring fetoplacental growth or if the resu…

"Stuffing half a dozen or so mice with booze and not giving them water for months gets them FUCKED UP, so forward this article to everyone whose husband drinks more than one tbsp of beer a week to prove that their child is gonna have all kinds of nasty birth defects" - The Science™

Re: Men should abstain from drinking at least three months prior to conceiving

#102
post #22
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. Maybe I’m just a lightweight, but 4 beers is into ‘drunk’ levels for me. Doing that 2 or 3 times a week? Of course that’s going to have health impacts.

Regular drinking exercises your liver and keeps it at peak performance. (I am not a doctor.)

Makes you smarter too. Your brain can only operate as fast as the slowest brain cells, and alcohol tends to kill the weakest brain cells first. It's like culling the herd, you speed everything up.

(.../s)

Re: Men should abstain from drinking at least three months prior to conceiving

#103
post #86

Would be a lot less kids in the (western) world if men were to follow this advice.

The US and EU already have declining fertility rates when you take immigration stats out of the equation.

Thats's just a natural behavior of people who are having it good. It happens everywhere, even in Turkey the fertility rates slid into the "catastrophic" range as the life quality of the people increased. When in places where tragedies are happening, the fertility skyrockets.

Re: Men should abstain from drinking at least three months prior to conceiving

#104
post #23

I've got a couple of questions about this. Maybe they were covered in the paper but I couldn't see the link? Let me know if I missed it. 1. What do they mean by "changes in sperm?" What are they actually measuring here? 2. Is there previous evidence that these changes in sperm are linked to FAS, or are we extrapolating from the known effects of motherly drinking? 3. They say 3-4 beers a couple times a week is enough…

> Alcohol can affect fertility by altering sperm count, size, shape, and motility. > Animal studies have provided clear evidence that offspring sired by ethanol-exposed males in the absence of maternal ethanol exposure showed more adverse behavioral development11, including increased risk of anxiety- and depression-like behaviors7,10, increased in activity and sensorimotor integration deficits, as well as decreased b…

As far as I can tell they didn’t correct for alcohol consumption of fathers post-conception.

All those effects could be the result of “alcoholic” father figures, right? What am I missing here?

Re: Men should abstain from drinking at least three months prior to conceiving

#105
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As pointed out by the parent comment, one strong 16 Oz can is already 2 drinks. Having 2 of those in a night or even slightly weaker ones puts you in the 3-4 drink range. I'm sure I'm not the only one with a habit of having 2 of those a few nights a week to tie a long day off.

When I think of "beers" in America, I usually think of Bud Light or similar lightweight lagers that are usually in the 4-5% alcohol range. Drinking 3-4 of those over a few hours with food will not get most people very drunk at all, depending on bodyweight and tolerance. I prefer IPAs which average closer to 7% and that higher alcohol concentration seems to make a big difference. Drinking 3-4 of those can get a person…

It seems you've been downvoted by people who get drunk on two Bud Lights, lol

Re: Men should abstain from drinking at least three months prior to conceiving

#107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If someone chooses to drink alcohol and it doesn't negatively impact other aspects of their life Almost everyone who drinks has this view of their own alcohol consumption. They aren't always wrong about this, but certainly very many of them are. Even people who are very obviously experiencing negative consequences of alcohol use will confidently assert that this isn't the case.

> Almost everyone who drinks has this view of their own alcohol consumption. They aren't always wrong about this, but certainly very many of them are. This just seems like a trap. "Alcohol doesn't negatively impact my life." "Well, that's exactly what an alcoholic would say!" So, you can't rely on the person's own judgment. But you can't rely on others' judgment either. For any level of alcohol intake, from 1 beer a…

I'm not sure that makes it a trap, but no I would not trust anyone's view of the consequences of their own drug use. But the alternative is not to match their use against a number created by an uninvolved third party either. Probably a person's family and other close relations have the most useful perspective on their use and its effects.

I'm not a moralizing teetotaler or drug abolitionist here either. Recreational drug use is often fine, people can and in some cases maybe even should do it. But it should stop when the negative consequences reach a certain point, and it's probably impossible for an individual to have the perspective allowing them to see where they are relative to that point.

Re: Men should abstain from drinking at least three months prior to conceiving

#108
post #104
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Alcohol can affect fertility by altering sperm count, size, shape, and motility. > Animal studies have provided clear evidence that offspring sired by ethanol-exposed males in the absence of maternal ethanol exposure showed more adverse behavioral development11, including increased risk of anxiety- and depression-like behaviors7,10, increased in activity and sensorimotor integration deficits, as well as decreased b…

As far as I can tell they didn’t correct for alcohol consumption of fathers post-conception. All those effects could be the result of “alcoholic” father figures, right? What am I missing here?

I was thinking the same. The anxiety patterns could be leading the fathers to drink, and those same anxiety patterns could be passed on via socialisation independently of the direct effects on the sperm.

Re: Men should abstain from drinking at least three months prior to conceiving

#109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If someone chooses to drink alcohol and it doesn't negatively impact other aspects of their life Almost everyone who drinks has this view of their own alcohol consumption. They aren't always wrong about this, but certainly very many of them are. Even people who are very obviously experiencing negative consequences of alcohol use will confidently assert that this isn't the case.

> Almost everyone who drinks has this view of their own alcohol consumption. They aren't always wrong about this, but certainly very many of them are. This just seems like a trap. "Alcohol doesn't negatively impact my life." "Well, that's exactly what an alcoholic would say!" So, you can't rely on the person's own judgment. But you can't rely on others' judgment either. For any level of alcohol intake, from 1 beer a…

They're diagnostic criteria intended for use by physicians, not for random internet people to diagnose others without even performing any kind of assessment.

If someone drinks one glass of wine a year, but their significant other gets upset about it (it's now "affecting their relationship"), is it them or their significant other that has A Problem?

Re: Men should abstain from drinking at least three months prior to conceiving

#110
post #93
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

3-4 beers after work several days per week seems like a drinking problem imho.

A drinking problem isn't defined by quantity, it is when you have a problematic habit/dependence that you can't quit at will. There are plenty of people who enjoy a few drinks several days a week but can just cut back or stop completely when they want/need to because they don't have alcoholism. I used to drink 3 beers almost every night. I cut down on it to lose weight and now have a single beer 2-3 nights a week and…

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