They have discovered that men with more brothers than sisters are likely to be more productive, the Daily Mail reported. The travelling speed of the sperm from 500 men were assessed and compared with their family make-up by scientists from the University of Sheffield.

According to Dr Allan Pacey, one of the researchers from the University of Sheffield, they found that the greater number of brothers, rather than sisters a man has, the faster his sperm is, increasing the likelihood of fertility. The findings published in the Asian Journal of Andrology, also back the theory that parents with good male fertility genes are more likely to have boys. Lots of brothers is also an indication that the man’s parents have strong male fertility genes, and they would then be passed on to the son, Dr Pacey added. 

Though the research did not give any clues as to how to treat male infertility, the surprising results could provide genetic insights into why some men are more fertile than others, said Dr Pacey. According to him it does, however, give food for thought about the importance of genetics for sperm motility and may open the way to more studies in this area. Sperm motility is a major factor in male fertility.

The team has found that eggs that don’t fertilise because of a defective PLCz, as in some forms of male infertility, can be treated with the active protein to produce egg activation. The added PLCz kick-starts the fertilisation process and significantly improves the chance of a successful pregnancy, the journal Fertility and Sterility reports.

“We know that some men are infertile because their sperm fail to activate eggs. Even though their sperm fuses with the egg, nothing happens,” said Tony Lai, professor at Cardiff, who with Professor Karl Swann, led the team at Cardiff University’s Institute of Molecular and Experimental Medicine and funded by the Wellcome Trust, according to a Cardiff statement.

“These sperm may lack a proper functioning version of PLCz, which is essential to trigger the next stage in becoming pregnant,” Lai added. “What’s important from our research is that we have used human sperm PLCz to obtain the positive results that we had previously observed only in experiments with mice. In the lab we have been able to prepare human PLCz protein that is active. If this protein is inactive or missing from sperm, it fails to trigger the process necessary for egg activation – the next crucial stage of embryo development,” Lai said.

Source: IANS

“Fertility treatments basically involve helping sperm to reach the egg,” said Jackson Kirkman-Brown, senior lecturer in reproductive biology at the University of Birmingham and director of the Centre for Human Reproductive Science, Birmingham. ”The majority of these involve doing something quite invasive to the woman, often even though she may be perfectly healthy. If you can give the man’s sperm a little more va-va-voom, you could help fertility in a far less invasive way and it would be far cheaper,” he said.

“We now have some compounds, that are in the early stages of testing, which can make more sperm swim through cervical mucus, which means you would get more sperm into the uterus. This should increase natural fertility,” added Kirkman-Brown, according to the Telegraph. Current fertility treatments such as IVF cost thousands of pounds while requiring the woman to take powerful medication and undergo invasive procedures to extract and implant eggs.

Yet only a third of all fertility problems suffered by couples are due to women – the rest lie with the male partner or an unknown cause. There have also been some recent concerns that male infertility is increasing as studies have shown that up to a quarter of young men have poor quality semen.

Source: IANS