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By Anne Harding
(Reuters Health) – Fertility women who smoke marijuana may be more successful if they quit smoking, according to recent research.
Of the more than 400 women treated with assisted reproductive technology (ART), the small fraction who reported using cannabis at the time was more than twice as likely to lose their pregnancy as those who did not. Had never smoked marijuana or had only consumed Jorge E. Chavarro, of Harvard TH, in the past Chan School of Public Health in Boston and found her colleagues.
Unexpectedly, the small fraction of couples in which the man was the only marijuana consumer had a significantly higher probability of having a baby.
But this conclusion should be considered as showing the absence of evidence of harm, rather than as evidence that the pot has a positive effect on male fertility, concluded Chavarro and his colleagues in the journal Human Reproduction .
"The bottom line is that we know too little about the effects of marijuana on reproductive health," Chavarro said in an email. "The scarcity of information is particularly worrisome given the concomitant trends of widespread legalization, the increased perception that marijuana poses no risk to health and increased consumption among men and women. women of childbearing age, including pregnant women. "
The researchers noted that only three studies examined the effects of marijuana use on fertility in both partners. Two of them, in couples trying to conceive naturally, found no effect. The third, in couples using antiretroviral therapy, found no effect on pregnancy or live births, but found that users had lower egg yields and fertilization rates.
The new study included 421 women who underwent 730 cycles of antiretroviral therapy between 2004 and 2017 in a fertility center in Boston. Male partners of 200 women have also been enrolled. Forty-four percent of women and 61% of men reported ever using marijuana, while 3% of women and 12% of men admitted to having already smoked marijuana.
During the study, 317 women had a positive pregnancy blood test out of a total of 395 antiretroviral treatment cycles, including nine women (16 cycles) who were using marijuana. A pregnancy loss occurred in 54% of marijuana smokers and 26% of non-users.
Among couples in which the male partner was the only current user of marijuana (23 couples, 41 cycles), 48% had a baby, compared with 29% of couples in which the male was not a user.
Some animal studies have suggested that activation of the endocannabinoid system – natural signaling molecules chemically similar to cannabis – at low levels improves testicular function, while higher activation levels depressed it, Chavarro noted. .
However, he said, "most of the human literature to date is about the most used men and shows for the most part a deleterious effect of marijuana on the production of sperm and testosterone".
"The message to remember is always that 100% of people do not use marijuana during pregnancy or are trying to become pregnant," said Dr. Nathaniel DeNicola, an assistant professor at George Washington University in Washington, DC who did not participate in the study. .
Although research on the use and fertility of marijuana is rare, he said, in a telephone interview, 30 studies were devoted to marijuana and pregnancy, and the overall evidence shows a "signal" indicating that women who use cannabis during pregnancy are at increased risk of low birth weight babies, preterm births and stillbirths at birth. "When marijuana is used at least once a week, or more than once a week, the risk begins to become more of a concern," he said.
In June, a handbook for physicians published in CMAJ summarized existing data on marijuana and fertility, echoing some of these warnings (https://bit.ly/2MvmZnw). Overall, cannabis use by men once a week or more was related to a 29% reduction in total sperm count, and women's consumption in the last three months was related to a delay ovulation.
Although the evidence does not indicate that marijuana use affects the ability to conceive of most couples, marijuana use "could worsen their difficulties" for people struggling with marijuana Infertility, "write Dr. Sara Ilnitsky and Stan Van Uum of the Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry at Western University in London, Ontario, Canada.
SOURCE: https://bit.ly/31X0fjY Human Reproduction, online August 14, 2019.
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