7 ms·

Sperm Parameters After Covid-19 Vaccine

39 points by charlieirish 5y ago

chris_wot 5y ago
So it did not affect sperm?
- mygoodaccount 5y ago
  It did. It significantly increased individuals with testes' sperm concentration, volume, and motility. While it's important to wait for follow-up studies to confirm this, it's good news that yet another barrier to taking the vaccine has been broken. EDIT: It appeared to have no effect, and the increase was likely not caused by the vaccine.
  - rgrieselhuber 5y ago
    For men
    - j4yav 5y ago
      Increasing women’s sperm count would have been a much more surprising finding, for sure.
      - mpfundstein 5y ago
        but nowadays everyone can be a man, right?
      - dlsa 5y ago
        For those scratching their heads and thinking this is just some kind of light humor thing, please bear in mind that the words "a woman's penis" and "people who have tested" and "people who chestfeed" are now parts of actual phrases used by government agencies in various parts of the world.
        dlsa 5y ago
        HN really needs to stop downvoting factual comments. Its anti-science and anti-truth. In other news, the earth is still round.
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
  - pvitz 5y ago
    Although the results look good, I don't think you could draw this conclusion. It is just an indication, but only a proper study with control groups etc could lead to such a conclusion. Edit: I see that the comment has been changed, but I will leave mine here anyway.
  - asdfasgasdgasdg 5y ago
    It is most likely the vaccine did not affect sperm parameters. The parameters happened to go up, but as the authors note, this was unlikely to have been caused by the vaccine. Several more plausible causes are noted in the study. The main thing the study does is basically rule out a catastrophic negative effect on sperm parameters from the vaccine.
  - belter 5y ago
    You cannot make that conclusion. You have a correlation the causation is not proven: "While these results showed statistically significant increases in all sperm parameters, the magnitude of change is within normal individual variation and may be influenced by regression to the mean.Additionally, the increase may be due to the increased abstinence time before the second sample. Men with oligospermia did not experience further decline."
  - Huwyt_Nashi047 5y ago
    With respect to your unedited comment, how would scientific evidence that the vaccine interferes with reproductive function be good news for advocates? "Conspiracy theorists" have been derided for months for being weary of its reproductive side effects but suddenly it's a positive if Science™ confirms it?
  - elif 5y ago
    I think it is more likely related to the pre-established 28% increase in masturbation during home isolation.
  - dlsa 5y ago
    "Individuals with testes"? How emasculating to have a key aspect of my genetics made optional.
    - genericuser314 5y ago
      * emasculating
      - dlsa 5y ago
        Thanks autocorrect.
    - orwin 5y ago
      I knew a guy who happened to have "testes" and was XXY, found out with fertility tests in the early 2000s. I think he Od'ed (on alcohol i guess?). I also happen to just have met a girl (like two years ago? Friends' daughter) with "testes", XXY too except it was detected soon enough that she can have testosterone suppressant during her puberty that seems to help a lot for her impulse control (it was her demand). I think genetics are hard, biology is hard, and self-determination as a human being is even harder. Don't think of this as emasculating and just a way some people want to talk. Honestly, no one gonna call you out if you say "guy" except maybe on twitter (look at the other posts on this thread), so please you don't have to act offended.
  - Huwyt_Nashi048 5y ago
    With respect to your unedited comment, how would scientific evidence that the vaccine interferes with reproductive function be good news for advocates? "Conspiracy theorists" have been derided for months for being weary of its reproductive side effects but suddenly it's a positive if Science™ confirms it?
bigdict 5y ago
Results: > After the second vaccine dose, the median sperm concentration significantly increased to 30 million/mL (IQR, 21.5-40.5; P = .02) and the median TMSC to 44 million (IQR, 27.5-98; P = .001). Semen volume and sperm motility also significantly increased (Table). > Eight of the 45 men were oligospermic before the vaccine (median concentration, 8.5 million/mL [IQR, 5.1-12]). Of these 8, 7 men had increased sperm concentration to normozoospermic range at follow-up (median concentration, 22 million/mL [IQR, 17-25.5]), and 1 man remained oligospermic. No man became azoospermic after the vaccine.
- fda_hates_u_2 5y ago
  > median sperm concentration significantly increased So, this confirms that the spike protein created by the mRNA does not stay in the muscle tissue and instead spreads around the body, right?
simonsarris 5y ago
In 45 vaccinated men over ~75 days, roughly 3/4ths saw a sperm increase or no change, and 1/4th (12 of them) saw a decrease. This is 1% interesting but its very odd to test 45 men and not also test 45 random men in the same age bracket. What if the count difference is an approximation of seasonal differences between December and April? For example, there is a lot more opportunity physical activity for people generally in April, especially with lockdown easing. Is this just measuring that? In other words, is a 3/4th increase-or-no-change, 1/4th decrease the norm in the population over that time period regardless of vaccines? Does sperm count go up more for unvaccinated people during that period?! It's possible that other studies could tell us this, but from the public study information and graph it seems surprisingly myopic. FOR EXAMPLE (note this is sheep, I found the same for boars too, but if someone has a good human graph please post. Note the benefit of other mammals is that there is no selection bias in who shows up to get tested for such things.): https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Mean-monthly-sperm-concentration-x10-sperm-mL-recorded-in-Dorper-rams-using-the_fig1_272337914 https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Mean-monthly-sperm-conce... Mean monthly sperm concentration in Dec and Jan: about 2600. In April, about 3400. That's a huge jump. What if that explains the entirety of these results? What if these vaccinated people have a lower than average variation! (And again, what if lockdown lifestyle changed things big time, and vaccinated people are doing more physical activity, etc etc.)
- jefftk 5y ago
  Without a control group this is really not very useful.
  - Moto7451 5y ago
    Is that actually true when they’re just looking for a deviance from the baseline of all male humans? There’s a wealth of active and historical fertility tests they can reach for.
    - olau 5y ago
      I haven't personally done any experiments in biology, but I believe control group'ing and randomization is so basic that if they haven't done that, they're probably not trying to seriously study the issue. The purpose is to try to diminish a bunch of systematic errors in the setup of the experiment. Systematic errors lead to stupid wild goose chases of side effects of the experiments themselves, rather than actual interesting effects.
jgrahamc 5y ago
Table of results (45 men): Before After Semen Volume (ml) 2.2 2.7 Concentration (m/ml) 26 30 Motility (%) 58 65 TMSC (m) 36 44 In the 2010 WHO data (https://www.who.int/reproductivehealth/topics/infertility/cooper_et_al_hru.pdf https://www.who.int/reproductivehealth/topics/infertility/co...) Percentile ml 2.5 1.2 5 1.5 10 2 25 2.7 50 3.7 75 4.8 90 6 95 6.8 97.5 7.6 So these men had really low semen volume to start with. The one thing I would note is that semen volume varies a lot over time. And so 45 men, taking two samples is really not a lot of data. My own data (samples 48 hours apart over a one month period) has median of 5.17 with IQR 4.91-5.84.
undecisive 5y ago
I'm a software developer. It has been years since I did anything even remotely scientific. I do not like conspiracy theories. I do not adhere to any that I'm aware of. Yet after reading the abstract, I'm left despairing. Just between the sample size and the glaring discrepancies in the sampling methodology before and after - so massive that they had to be mentioned in the abstract, and I'm left wondering who this is supposed to convince. Sometimes conspiracy theory fighters are their own worst enemies.
- elif 5y ago
  This is not an axiomatic proof. It is a sanity check and for that it is sufficient. If you require "convincing" in this instance then infact you do adhere. But that's okay.
  - jaywalk 5y ago
    > If you require "convincing" in this instance then infact you do adhere. It is not a conspiracy theory to believe that a relatively untested vaccine can have unknown side effects. The FDA just added a heart inflammation warning a few days ago, for example.
    - JoeAltmaier 5y ago
      The vaccine was normally tested for side effects. That's why it took so long. The step that was skipped was the efficacy testing. Not safety testing. The efficacy was proved in the field.
      - codeflow2202 5y ago
        When you sign to get your vaccine it's clearly stated that long term side effects are unknown (at least in Europe). We can only hope it's gonna be ok.
      - jaywalk 5y ago
        You're incorrect. The accelerated timelines for testing the vaccines could not have allowed for the normal amount of safety testing: https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/vaccines/timeline https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/vaccines/timeline
changoplatanero 5y ago
I happened to have my sperm tested after getting Pfizer vaccine and they said that I had elevated white blood cell count in the semen.
- SketchySeaBeast 5y ago
  Isn't there a lot of different factors? How long after? Were you fighting any other infections you weren't aware of? Tobacco, Marijuana, and Alcohol use can apparently all affect the count of white blood cells.
m1117 5y ago
Maybe after the vaccine, they felt less intimidated to go out there and have sex with strangers, which affected their semen.
- nathanvanfleet 5y ago
  ???
- newobj 5y ago
  Now That's What I Call A Yikes! Volume 1117
pyuser583 5y ago
Take with a grain of salt: > The limitations of the study include the small number of men enrolled; limited generalizability beyond young, healthy men; short follow-up; and lack of a control group. In addition, while semen analysis is the foundation of male fertility evaluation, it is an imperfect predictor of fertility potential. Despite this, the study’s time frame encompasses the full life cycle of sperm.
- mortb 5y ago
  Yes, in my opinion this study is too small and uses a too narrow sample of the population to matter. Not much to write about really

39 points by charlieirish 5y ago

chris_wot 5y ago

So it did not affect sperm?

mygoodaccount 5y ago
It did. It significantly increased individuals with testes' sperm concentration, volume, and motility. While it's important to wait for follow-up studies to confirm this, it's good news that yet another barrier to taking the vaccine has been broken. EDIT: It appeared to have no effect, and the increase was likely not caused by the vaccine.
- rgrieselhuber 5y ago
  For men
  - j4yav 5y ago
    Increasing women’s sperm count would have been a much more surprising finding, for sure.
    - mpfundstein 5y ago
      but nowadays everyone can be a man, right?
    - dlsa 5y ago
      For those scratching their heads and thinking this is just some kind of light humor thing, please bear in mind that the words "a woman's penis" and "people who have tested" and "people who chestfeed" are now parts of actual phrases used by government agencies in various parts of the world.
      - dlsa 5y ago
        HN really needs to stop downvoting factual comments. Its anti-science and anti-truth. In other news, the earth is still round.
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
- pvitz 5y ago
  Although the results look good, I don't think you could draw this conclusion. It is just an indication, but only a proper study with control groups etc could lead to such a conclusion. Edit: I see that the comment has been changed, but I will leave mine here anyway.
- asdfasgasdgasdg 5y ago
  It is most likely the vaccine did not affect sperm parameters. The parameters happened to go up, but as the authors note, this was unlikely to have been caused by the vaccine. Several more plausible causes are noted in the study. The main thing the study does is basically rule out a catastrophic negative effect on sperm parameters from the vaccine.
- belter 5y ago
  You cannot make that conclusion. You have a correlation the causation is not proven: "While these results showed statistically significant increases in all sperm parameters, the magnitude of change is within normal individual variation and may be influenced by regression to the mean.Additionally, the increase may be due to the increased abstinence time before the second sample. Men with oligospermia did not experience further decline."
- Huwyt_Nashi047 5y ago
  With respect to your unedited comment, how would scientific evidence that the vaccine interferes with reproductive function be good news for advocates? "Conspiracy theorists" have been derided for months for being weary of its reproductive side effects but suddenly it's a positive if Science™ confirms it?
- elif 5y ago
  I think it is more likely related to the pre-established 28% increase in masturbation during home isolation.
- dlsa 5y ago
  "Individuals with testes"? How emasculating to have a key aspect of my genetics made optional.
  - genericuser314 5y ago
    * emasculating
    - dlsa 5y ago
      Thanks autocorrect.
  - orwin 5y ago
    I knew a guy who happened to have "testes" and was XXY, found out with fertility tests in the early 2000s. I think he Od'ed (on alcohol i guess?). I also happen to just have met a girl (like two years ago? Friends' daughter) with "testes", XXY too except it was detected soon enough that she can have testosterone suppressant during her puberty that seems to help a lot for her impulse control (it was her demand). I think genetics are hard, biology is hard, and self-determination as a human being is even harder. Don't think of this as emasculating and just a way some people want to talk. Honestly, no one gonna call you out if you say "guy" except maybe on twitter (look at the other posts on this thread), so please you don't have to act offended.
- Huwyt_Nashi048 5y ago
  With respect to your unedited comment, how would scientific evidence that the vaccine interferes with reproductive function be good news for advocates? "Conspiracy theorists" have been derided for months for being weary of its reproductive side effects but suddenly it's a positive if Science™ confirms it?

bigdict 5y ago

Results: > After the second vaccine dose, the median sperm concentration significantly increased to 30 million/mL (IQR, 21.5-40.5; P = .02) and the median TMSC to 44 million (IQR, 27.5-98; P = .001). Semen volume and sperm motility also significantly increased (Table). > Eight of the 45 men were oligospermic before the vaccine (median concentration, 8.5 million/mL [IQR, 5.1-12]). Of these 8, 7 men had increased sperm concentration to normozoospermic range at follow-up (median concentration, 22 million/mL [IQR, 17-25.5]), and 1 man remained oligospermic. No man became azoospermic after the vaccine.

fda_hates_u_2 5y ago
> median sperm concentration significantly increased So, this confirms that the spike protein created by the mRNA does not stay in the muscle tissue and instead spreads around the body, right?

simonsarris 5y ago

In 45 vaccinated men over ~75 days, roughly 3/4ths saw a sperm increase or no change, and 1/4th (12 of them) saw a decrease. This is 1% interesting but its very odd to test 45 men and not also test 45 random men in the same age bracket. What if the count difference is an approximation of seasonal differences between December and April? For example, there is a lot more opportunity physical activity for people generally in April, especially with lockdown easing. Is this just measuring that? In other words, is a 3/4th increase-or-no-change, 1/4th decrease the norm in the population over that time period regardless of vaccines? Does sperm count go up more for unvaccinated people during that period?! It's possible that other studies could tell us this, but from the public study information and graph it seems surprisingly myopic. FOR EXAMPLE (note this is sheep, I found the same for boars too, but if someone has a good human graph please post. Note the benefit of other mammals is that there is no selection bias in who shows up to get tested for such things.): https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Mean-monthly-sperm-concentration-x10-sperm-mL-recorded-in-Dorper-rams-using-the_fig1_272337914 https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Mean-monthly-sperm-conce... Mean monthly sperm concentration in Dec and Jan: about 2600. In April, about 3400. That's a huge jump. What if that explains the entirety of these results? What if these vaccinated people have a lower than average variation! (And again, what if lockdown lifestyle changed things big time, and vaccinated people are doing more physical activity, etc etc.)

jefftk 5y ago
Without a control group this is really not very useful.
- Moto7451 5y ago
  Is that actually true when they’re just looking for a deviance from the baseline of all male humans? There’s a wealth of active and historical fertility tests they can reach for.
  - olau 5y ago
    I haven't personally done any experiments in biology, but I believe control group'ing and randomization is so basic that if they haven't done that, they're probably not trying to seriously study the issue. The purpose is to try to diminish a bunch of systematic errors in the setup of the experiment. Systematic errors lead to stupid wild goose chases of side effects of the experiments themselves, rather than actual interesting effects.

jgrahamc 5y ago

Table of results (45 men): Before After Semen Volume (ml) 2.2 2.7 Concentration (m/ml) 26 30 Motility (%) 58 65 TMSC (m) 36 44 In the 2010 WHO data (https://www.who.int/reproductivehealth/topics/infertility/cooper_et_al_hru.pdf https://www.who.int/reproductivehealth/topics/infertility/co...) Percentile ml 2.5 1.2 5 1.5 10 2 25 2.7 50 3.7 75 4.8 90 6 95 6.8 97.5 7.6 So these men had really low semen volume to start with. The one thing I would note is that semen volume varies a lot over time. And so 45 men, taking two samples is really not a lot of data. My own data (samples 48 hours apart over a one month period) has median of 5.17 with IQR 4.91-5.84.

undecisive 5y ago

I'm a software developer. It has been years since I did anything even remotely scientific. I do not like conspiracy theories. I do not adhere to any that I'm aware of. Yet after reading the abstract, I'm left despairing. Just between the sample size and the glaring discrepancies in the sampling methodology before and after - so massive that they had to be mentioned in the abstract, and I'm left wondering who this is supposed to convince. Sometimes conspiracy theory fighters are their own worst enemies.

elif 5y ago
This is not an axiomatic proof. It is a sanity check and for that it is sufficient. If you require "convincing" in this instance then infact you do adhere. But that's okay.
- jaywalk 5y ago
  > If you require "convincing" in this instance then infact you do adhere. It is not a conspiracy theory to believe that a relatively untested vaccine can have unknown side effects. The FDA just added a heart inflammation warning a few days ago, for example.
  - JoeAltmaier 5y ago
    The vaccine was normally tested for side effects. That's why it took so long. The step that was skipped was the efficacy testing. Not safety testing. The efficacy was proved in the field.
    - codeflow2202 5y ago
      When you sign to get your vaccine it's clearly stated that long term side effects are unknown (at least in Europe). We can only hope it's gonna be ok.
    - jaywalk 5y ago
      You're incorrect. The accelerated timelines for testing the vaccines could not have allowed for the normal amount of safety testing: https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/vaccines/timeline https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/vaccines/timeline

changoplatanero 5y ago

I happened to have my sperm tested after getting Pfizer vaccine and they said that I had elevated white blood cell count in the semen.

SketchySeaBeast 5y ago
Isn't there a lot of different factors? How long after? Were you fighting any other infections you weren't aware of? Tobacco, Marijuana, and Alcohol use can apparently all affect the count of white blood cells.

m1117 5y ago

Maybe after the vaccine, they felt less intimidated to go out there and have sex with strangers, which affected their semen.

nathanvanfleet 5y ago
???
newobj 5y ago
Now That's What I Call A Yikes! Volume 1117

pyuser583 5y ago

Take with a grain of salt: > The limitations of the study include the small number of men enrolled; limited generalizability beyond young, healthy men; short follow-up; and lack of a control group. In addition, while semen analysis is the foundation of male fertility evaluation, it is an imperfect predictor of fertility potential. Despite this, the study’s time frame encompasses the full life cycle of sperm.

mortb 5y ago
Yes, in my opinion this study is too small and uses a too narrow sample of the population to matter. Not much to write about really