Selecting Your Child's Sex Will Soon Be a Reality

 Selecting your baby’s gender may soon be a reality in light of a new sperm sorting technique. This new technique sorts sperm into a density gradient which will allow lighter sperm cells to float to the top of a container while heavier cells will sink to the bottom. Since sperm containing an X chromosome (female) are heavier and sperm containing a Y chromosome (Male) are lighter, it is now much easier to choose which sperm you want to fertilize the egg. Once implanted, the success rate is currently at about eighty percent for choosing the desired gender. This practice does have some genuine medical merit if a parent is trying to protect their child from having a disease that affects a certain gender in their family. To that end, I think this practice will create more widespread societal issues that are not being considered. This could easily lead to having a serious sex imbalance in our population and could lead to other modification techniques as the technology improves.

Obesity Leads to Gamete Damage

Obesity can lead to a multitude of serious health problems. One that is not often discussed is the damage that it can cause to sperm production. In one experiment Zucker rats, chosen for metabolic characteristics that are close to our own, were examined for a variety of traits revolving around reproductive function. Twelve rats were selected from the same litter, some of which were over fed resulting in obesity. After being examined it was found that obesity caused many problems in regard to reproductive function.

               Among the things affected were the physical anatomy of the genitals, difference in organ weight, onset of puberty, and sperm production. The affects obesity had on sperm production were alarming. It was found that gamete production was significantly decreased as well as having notable damage to the DNA. The DNA fragmentation may result from cells that did not undergo apoptosis correctly and proceed to spermiogenesis. This is most likely due to a deficiency in leptin, a hormone that helps to regulate reproductive function.

These findings are startling to say the least as these hormones and receptors are also part of our own genome. As the obesity crisis continues on, we must start to worry about the damage being inadvertently done to future generations. Not only do future generation have to deal with the epigenetic effects of artificial additives and unknown consequences of GMO foods, but they may very well be damaged before conception.