Stress ‘drives men into shooting blanks’

BY GARDY CHACHA

There’s no greater feeling to a man than aiming with precision, ‘executing’ like a stallion, and completing with awesome success. But what happens when the bullets downstairs are feeble and virtually absent?

Or worse, when they can shoot but the aftermath does not depict expected results? A newly published study suggests that stress can render men impotent or lead to off springs exhibiting disability of one form or another.

The findings state that stress can cause permanent damage to a man’s sperm and even stunt his children’s brain development.

The study by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and published in the Journal of Neuroscience explains that suffering anxiety or depression as an adult, teenager or even as a child could cause a lasting genetic change in a man’s sperm.

Could this be true?

Neurosurgeon and Moi University School of medicine lecturer Dr Florentius Koech agrees with findings in the study.

“Even before this study came, it is known to us in medicine that stress indeed affects a man’s fertility,” he says. “When a man is stressed the body release endorphins, which tamper with both the quality and production of sperms.”

The results of the study were arrived at after tests conducted on mice showed that stress causes sperm damage which in turn leads to possible abnormalities in an offspring; notably, mental disorders. 

The team of researchers led by Prof Tracy Bale exposed male mice to six weeks of chronic stress (being moved to another cage and exposed to predator odour and noise) before breeding.

They found that offspring from paternal stress groups displayed significantly blunted levels of the stress hormone corticosterone – cortisol in humans – in response to stress.

Dr John Ong’ech, a practising gynaecologist at Kenyatta National Hospital also agrees with the findings of the study.

“The brain is involved fully in the process of spermatogenesis,” he says. “The process of sperm formation is aided by production of Luteinizing hormone and Follicle stimulating hormone; all of which come as a result of pathways controlled by the brain. Therefore, if a man is not in their right mental set up (or if they are stressed), they cannot produce enough sperms, and also of good quality.”

However, the doctor says he cannot confirm the rise of offsprings with mental abnormalities as he has not come across chromosomal defects caused by stress.

What the two medics agree on though is the fact that stress is not good if a man’s aim is to bear offsprings.

Bottom line: Men, don’t stress yourself into blank shots.