{"id":1933,"date":"2018-12-22T15:43:51","date_gmt":"2018-12-22T04:43:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dalgarnoinstitute.org.au\/wp_site\/new-study-finds-that-marijuana-can-reprogram-sperm-genes\/"},"modified":"2025-11-12T21:02:17","modified_gmt":"2025-11-12T10:02:17","slug":"new-study-finds-that-marijuana-can-reprogram-sperm-genes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dalgarnoinstitute.org.au\/wp_site\/new-study-finds-that-marijuana-can-reprogram-sperm-genes\/","title":{"rendered":"New study finds that marijuana can reprogram sperm genes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>December 20, 2018<\/p>\n<p>We already know that cannabis lowers sperm count, but new research suggests that the drug actually causes genetic changes to the sperm itself \u2014 which might have implications for the health of a potential baby.<\/p>\n<p>For a study published today in the journal&nbsp;Epigenetics, scientists at Duke University&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Think of your DNA as a list of instructions for making proteins, and genes as small subsets of that list. Our body has little chemical tags (called methyl groups) that get added to the DNA at specific regions, explains Susan Kay Murphy, a professor of gynecology at Duke and co-author of the study. These chemicals don\u2019t mutate the genes&nbsp;themselves, but they do affect how they\u2019re used, like deciding which instructions are followed and which aren\u2019t.<\/p>\n<p>Najari already counsels men who use marijuana regularly to cut back because of the effect on sperm count. \u201cI think one of the important positive things about research like this is that it may further motivate men to change their health,\u201d he adds. \u201cIt\u2019s one thing to talk about sperm count, another when you\u2019re talking about the potential health of the child.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Both Najari and Murphy stress that future research needs to be done, and the Duke team is already working on follow-up studies. Are those changes reversible? Will they even end up affecting a potential baby? \u201c<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"button\" href=\"http:\/\/va.newsrepublic.net\/a\/6636779833005179398?user_id=6551522476692897801&amp;language=en&amp;region=au&amp;app_id=1239&amp;impr_id=6637184283037419782&amp;gid=6636779833005179398&amp;c=sys\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">For complete story<\/a>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>December 20, 2018 We already know that cannabis lowers sperm count, but new research suggests that the drug actually causes genetic changes to the sperm itself \u2014 which might have implications for the health of a potential baby. For a study published today in the journal&nbsp;Epigenetics, scientists at Duke University&nbsp; Think of your DNA as [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":"","_wp_rev_ctl_limit":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[78],"class_list":["post-1933","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cannabis-conundrum","tag-cannabis-conundrum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dalgarnoinstitute.org.au\/wp_site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1933","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dalgarnoinstitute.org.au\/wp_site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dalgarnoinstitute.org.au\/wp_site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dalgarnoinstitute.org.au\/wp_site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dalgarnoinstitute.org.au\/wp_site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1933"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.dalgarnoinstitute.org.au\/wp_site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1933\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dalgarnoinstitute.org.au\/wp_site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dalgarnoinstitute.org.au\/wp_site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dalgarnoinstitute.org.au\/wp_site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}