Smoking marijuana may make you more fertile. A new study has revealed.
The study which involved 662 men over a period between the years 2000 and 2017 found that marijuana abuse does not affect fertility as previously indicated by research firms.
The findings came as a huge surprise for the scientists who sampled some 1143 semen samples from couples attending a fertility clinic.
Based on the previously conducted studies which concluded that cannabis has a detrimental effect on sperm count, the researchers literally didn’t see it coming.
According to Dr Jorge Chavarro, an associate professor of nutrition and epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, they expected those who have smoked pot to be hit hardest.
This turned out to be the exact opposite as the analysed data suggested.
“We spent a good two months redoing everything, making sure that there wasn’t any error in the data,” Cahvarro was quoted during an interview with Bloomberg.
According to the new study published in the journal Reproductive Health, scientists found there was no significant difference in sperm concentrations between current and former smokers.
Higher sperm count!
The research noted based on the results that participants who admitted ever taking the drug turned out to have higher sperm counts than non-users.
Not so fast…
The scientists were quick, however, to point out that using marijuana does not increase your chances of being a father.
Previous studies have associated the use of marijuana with poor-quality sperms and an overall adverse effect on the reproductive health.
The researchers noted too, that their study may have had some limitations like the participants under-reporting their use of cannabis.
Countries where weed is legal
While Uruguay is regarded as the first country to legalize marijuana, Canada became the largest country where weed is legal when it passed the bill last year. African countries where weed is legal are South Africa, Lesotho and Zimbabwe.