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American Morning

Male Fertility

Aired February 06, 2003 - 08:46   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Men who think they can wait as long as they want to become fathers may be in for a rather unhappy surprise. In our Paging Dr. Gupta segment today, we have new information confirming that men do indeed have a ticking biological clock.
Sanjay is in Kuwait, so medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen now joins us from the CNN Center with more on this.

What's the deal, Elizabeth? Good morning to you.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Bill.

Bill, we've all heard about men who father children well into their golden years and, yes, it's true, that does happen. For example, Charlie Chaplain fathered children into his 70s. Tony Randall fathered two babies after the age of 70. There's Michael Douglas, who fathered a child at 56. Anthony Quinn fathered his last child in his early 80s. Strom Thurmond fathered the first of his four children at age 69. And there was Charlie Chaplain, and there's Tony Randall, with two babies after the age of 70.

What this new study says is, yes that is possible, but that the chances of that are a lot lower than you might think. Let's take a look at the numbers. What they found was that when you look at 22- year-old men, 25 percent of them have slow sperm. When you look at 60-year-old men, 85 percent of them have slow sperm. What the study also found is that not only are the sperms slower, they also tend to get confused. As the men get older, their sperm turn to run around in circles, not knowing exactly what they're supposed to be doing.

Doctors are particularly concerned about these findings, because they say more and more men over the age of 35 are fathering children, many more now than 20 years ago. And at age 35 plus, a man's fertility is cut in half compared to a man 25 and under.

HEMMER: I got to think a lot of this is just common sense. You know, if it starts to fail in females, why would it not fail in men? But give us the biological explanation as to why the equipment stops working after a time, so to speak.

COHEN: Right, so to speak. Some of it is actually physiological. They're just cellular changes within the sperm that as they get older, they start to slow down. Some of it is external. The longer you live, the more chance you're going to have that you're going to have the disease that damages your sperm, or something external in the environment might damage your sperm. The longer you live, the higher the chance that's going to happen. HEMMER: Come back to the gender difference, though, what is the distinction between men and women on this issue, though?

COHEN: Right, huge distinction between the two biological clocks. Women, once they hit menopause, it's all over. I mean, there really is a drop dead date. An 80-year-old woman cannot have a child. However, with men, it's gradual. It starts in the early 30s, and fertility gradual goes down over the following decades, and for some men, there is no drop-dead date. Some men really can father children into their 80s.

HEMMER: I think those people are called the Energizer Bunny.

COHEN: That's right.

HEMMER: Thanks, Elizabeth. Good to see you this morning.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com






Aired February 6, 2003 - 08:46   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Men who think they can wait as long as they want to become fathers may be in for a rather unhappy surprise. In our Paging Dr. Gupta segment today, we have new information confirming that men do indeed have a ticking biological clock.
Sanjay is in Kuwait, so medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen now joins us from the CNN Center with more on this.

What's the deal, Elizabeth? Good morning to you.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Bill.

Bill, we've all heard about men who father children well into their golden years and, yes, it's true, that does happen. For example, Charlie Chaplain fathered children into his 70s. Tony Randall fathered two babies after the age of 70. There's Michael Douglas, who fathered a child at 56. Anthony Quinn fathered his last child in his early 80s. Strom Thurmond fathered the first of his four children at age 69. And there was Charlie Chaplain, and there's Tony Randall, with two babies after the age of 70.

What this new study says is, yes that is possible, but that the chances of that are a lot lower than you might think. Let's take a look at the numbers. What they found was that when you look at 22- year-old men, 25 percent of them have slow sperm. When you look at 60-year-old men, 85 percent of them have slow sperm. What the study also found is that not only are the sperms slower, they also tend to get confused. As the men get older, their sperm turn to run around in circles, not knowing exactly what they're supposed to be doing.

Doctors are particularly concerned about these findings, because they say more and more men over the age of 35 are fathering children, many more now than 20 years ago. And at age 35 plus, a man's fertility is cut in half compared to a man 25 and under.

HEMMER: I got to think a lot of this is just common sense. You know, if it starts to fail in females, why would it not fail in men? But give us the biological explanation as to why the equipment stops working after a time, so to speak.

COHEN: Right, so to speak. Some of it is actually physiological. They're just cellular changes within the sperm that as they get older, they start to slow down. Some of it is external. The longer you live, the more chance you're going to have that you're going to have the disease that damages your sperm, or something external in the environment might damage your sperm. The longer you live, the higher the chance that's going to happen. HEMMER: Come back to the gender difference, though, what is the distinction between men and women on this issue, though?

COHEN: Right, huge distinction between the two biological clocks. Women, once they hit menopause, it's all over. I mean, there really is a drop dead date. An 80-year-old woman cannot have a child. However, with men, it's gradual. It starts in the early 30s, and fertility gradual goes down over the following decades, and for some men, there is no drop-dead date. Some men really can father children into their 80s.

HEMMER: I think those people are called the Energizer Bunny.

COHEN: That's right.

HEMMER: Thanks, Elizabeth. Good to see you this morning.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com