Resumen de Test tells how much smoking has aged sperm
A sperm age calculator can tell men how "old" their sperm is, revealing changes caused by smoking. Tim Jenkins at the University of Utah and his colleagues have studied the sperm of 350 men, looking for genetic switches. So far, they have found changes at 147 points in the genome that seem linked to age. The team have now created a "calculator" that assesses the state of the DNA at these 147 sites. Their analysis can predict a man's age with 95 per cent accuracy, and identify whether his sperm have aged prematurely. Jenkins and his colleagues find that smokers have much older-looking sperm. "For a 40-year-old man who smokes, our calculator would calculate him to be 44 or so," says Jenkins, who will present his findings at the American Society of Reproductive Medicine's annual meeting in San Antonio TX this month.
