Sperm May Feel the Weight of Extra Pounds: Study

By Genevra Pittman

Worldwide - Heavy men are more likely than their normal-weight peers to have low sperm counts or no sperm production at all, suggests a new report.

The review of past studies can't prove that overweight or obese men will have more trouble fathering a child. But researchers said that how many sperm men make is one of the key ways doctors measure their fertility.

"In general you expect that men with lower sperm counts will have a greater frequency of difficulty conceiving than men with higher sperm counts, but it's not completely straightforward," said Dr. Jorge Chavarro, from the Harvard School of Public Health, part of the collaborative group that put out the study.

How well sperm move, their shape and the quality of DNA they carry matter too, Chavarro said -- but previous studies have suggested some of those measures of sperm quality may be affected by obesity as well. For the new analysis, French researchers combined data from 14 studies that compared sperm count in samples of ejaculate from normal weight, overweight and obese men, as well as data from their own infertility center.

About one-quarter of the combined 10,000 men had a low sperm count. In another analysis, just over 250 out of almost 7,000 men had no sperm in their ejaculate at all.

Dr. Sebastien Czernichow, from the Ambroise Pare Hospital, Boulogne-Billancourt, and colleagues calculated that compared to normal-weight men, overweight men were 11 percent more likely to have a low sperm count and 39 percent more likely to have no sperm -- though it's possible the second finding was due to chance.

Obese men, on the other hand, were 42 percent more likely to have a low sperm count than their normal-weight peers and 81 percent more likely to have sperm-free ejaculate, the researchers reported in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

They proposed a number of different theories for the findings, including that male hormones may be converted into estrogen in fat tissue, affecting sperm-making down the line, or that more fat in the hips and stomach could make the scrotum too hot.

The results don't prove that overweight and obese men will have more fertility trouble -- although you wouldn't expect men who have no sperm at all to be fertile, Chavarro said. And it's possible that the obesity itself isn't to blame; rather, in some men, an underlying health condition causes them to gain weight and affects their sperm, said Dr. Stephen Winters, Professor of Medicine and Chief of the Division of Endocrinology, Metabolism and Diabetes at the University of Louisville.

Because of that, researchers can't say for sure whether heavy men could boost their sperm production by losing weight. Czernichow told Reuters Health in an email that losing weight improves fertility in women, but that there's not much data in men -- though small case reports have suggested weight-loss surgery may actually have a negative effect on sperm.

The findings jibe with a study from late last year which found that being overweight was tied to a lower sperm concentration and lower motility -- how well sperm swam.

The current report "is not conclusive, and the risks are not huge," Winters, who wasn't involved in the research, told Reuters Health. But fertility trouble, he added, "is there among the health risks of obesity."
"This appears to be yet another health outcome for which maintaining a healthy weight appears to be important," Chavarro told Reuters Health.

"It's not only about your cardiovascular disease risk, it's not only about diabetes and some forms of cancer. Obesity also seems to affect outcomes that may be manifested in younger men."

Israel Police Expel Harvard Students from Palestinian Village

By Oz Rosenburg

 Jerusalem - Israel Border Police expelled a group of 55 students from Harvard University from a Palestinian village after a confrontation erupted along the separation fence near Jerusalem.

 According to Border Police, the confrontation occurred after a bus full of Harvard students who were touring the area began traveling along a route inside the village of Walaja which is intended solely for Israeli security vehicles.

“They arrived on a Palestinian bus and traveled along the route of the fence,” said a Border Police spokesperson, calling the incident a “clear transgression.” The spokesperson also stated that none of the students were detained for question, but were forced to leave the area.

Border Police forces detained the tour leader and Walaja resident Shereen al-Araj for questioning. She was taken to a police base in Atarot and was released on bail after an investigation which lasted several hours.

According to al-Araj, the bus was on the way to look at one of the houses that is slated for demolition so that the security fence can be built. Once the bus arrived at the house, the students exited the bus, only to be met by a private security firm employed to protect bulldozers.

“The security guards approached us and said that we could not be there because it was a “closed military zone,” despite the fact that Israel’s High Court established that it is not.”

According to al-Araj, the private security guards called the Border Police, which eventually escorted the bus out of the village, but not before taking the I.D. cards of the Palestinian students on the bus, as well as that of the driver.  

The students, who study at the Harvard Kennedy School, were part of a yearly tour to Israel and the West Bank which is put on by the Palestinian Committee.

Odd Stories: US Regional Dictionary Gets in Last Word as It Wraps Up Work

 By Ian Simpson

United States - The Dictionary of American Regional English has finally reached its final word - "zydeco" - as researchers wrap up almost 50 years of work charting the rich variety of American speech.

The dictionary's official publication date is March 20 but lexicographers and word fans have been celebrating ever since its fifth and final volume emerged earlier this year.

"It truly is America's dictionary," Ben Zimmer, a language columnist and lexicographer, told a Washington, D.C. news conference on Thursday.

He said when the final printed volume was delivered to its longtime editor, Joan Houston Hall, at a meeting of fellow dialect scholars: "There were audible gasps in the room."

The Dictionary of American Regional English's (DARE) 60,000 entries running from "A" to "zydeco," a style of Louisiana Cajun music, serve as a comprehensive sample of how American speech changes from region to region.

That space between sidewalk and curb? Depending on what part of the United States it is in, it can be called "parking," "devil's strip," "swale," "parkway" or "tree lawn."

Hall, who has headed the DARE project since 2000, said she was convinced fears that American English was becoming homogenized through television and mass media were unfounded.

"I don't buy it. Yes, language changes at different rates and at different places," she said. "But most of the words among our family and friends that are regional we don't even recognize as regional."

Although the idea of a dictionary of American dialects had been around since the 1880s, the project did not take shape until 1962, when Frederick Cassidy, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, was appointed editor.

The DARE project was based on interviews carried out in more than 1,000 communities from 1965 to 1970 by University of Wisconsin researchers.

They asked Americans about their ways of talking about kitchen implements, housing, animals, diseases, food, music and more.

For the next several decades, editors sifted the 2.3 million responses and a mass of written materials including newspapers, letters and diaries ranging from the Colonial period to the present.

The dictionary, published in five volumes by Harvard University's Belknap Press and running to over 5,500 pages, includes words from about 70 languages, ranging from Bantu to Lithuanian to Choctaw. It retails for about $545.

Hall, who took over the project with Cassidy's death in 2000, said the last volume took longer to complete, about 10 years, because of the wealth of materials that had become available online.

"We felt that there was so much of value we didn't dare ignore it," she said at the news conference at the National Endowment for the Humanities, one of the book's main sponsors.

Dictionary entries include "bealing" for an abscess, "bear claw" and "kolacky" for types of pastries, "calf rope" for surrender in children's games, "dew poison" for a foot rash, "Lucy Bowles" for diarrhea, "rippet" for a disturbance or fight, and "pogonip" to describe a thick, cold fog.