Doc Gurley

BOGUS Happy Sperm

In the journal of Make Sh*t Up…oh, wait, I mean the Journal of Bioscience Hypotheses…an author throws out an idea (completely divorced from any reality) and then the news – specifically LiveScience and Fox News – report it as scientific fact. This latest pseudo-science reporting is so BOGUS, it almost makes those of us here at Doc Gurley (wading

: Image via Wikipedia

hip-deep in Bio-Hypo Bogosity) actually long for the days (in a misty, soft-focus kind of way) when Merck made up a journal, with imaginary-peers, who reviewed and published fabricated results – at least they PRETENDED there was some science involved.

So what’s the pseudo-claim this time? As usual, it involves genes and pregnancy. To wit (if you’ll pardon the oxymoronic phrase), one Dr. Alberto Halabe Bucay of Research Center Halabe and Darwich in Mexico states, “It is well known, of course, that parental behavior affects children, and that the genes that a child gets from its parents help shape that child’s character. My paper suggests a way that the parent’s psychology before conception can actually affect the child’s genes.”

In other words, you have to ask in the post-coital glow – was it good for you? Otherwise, if not, you might get saddled with cranky kids. The fact that there is no basis, biologically, genetically or even grammatically, for psycho-babble to produce happy sperm – that fact apparently deterred no one reporting Dr. Bucay’s claim as truth. Heck, that means there is only one appropriate rebuttal – to reply “Well, MY paper suggests a way that a mother’s wishful thinking can alter the time-space continuum of matter, anti-matter, sub-atomic particles, the price of gas at Costco, and even the universe. So there – ha!”

Oh wait, Oprah already covered that one…

Sheesh. It’s going to take some effort to find anything NEW to blame on mothers. Perhaps that’s where the achievement lies…

For this mind-boggling bit of credulous BOGUS reporting, we award both LiveScience and FoxNews an appropriately erudite Babies Oughtn’ta Get Unhappy Sperms (BOGUS) Award.

Seen a truly BOGUS bit of pseudo-science? Or have you got a thingie on your doohickey? Are you pondering how to tell your doctor he’s a jerk? Send your burning healthcare questions to Doc Gurley by emailing docgurleyatgmaildotcom. Doc Gurley cannot answer every question, and she cannot practice medicine through a keyboard (not even with her stethoscope pressed firmly against the monitor) but be assured – your questions will be kept strictly confidential and identifying traits are changed.

If you liked my post, feel free to subscribe to my rss feeds

Post meta

This entry was written by Doc Gurley and posted on June 29, 2009 at 5:13 am and filed under BOGUS Awards, Feature. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post. Post a comment(Latest is displayed first) or leave a trackback: Trackback URL.

Share with others

15 Comments so far (Add 1 more)

No, Menlo Bob. Investors Business Daily has been shown to be lying and making up data and quotes in its coverage. This is the same set of people who claimed that Stephen Hawking would have died if he had been treated by the NHS and included made up quotes from him. Of course Hawking pointed out that the NHS had been caring for him all his life and he would have been dead long ago – long before his Nobel prize winning research – if it hadn’t been for the NHS. I advise you to quit reading them – if their investment advice is even a bit like their ‘reporting’ then you will regret it.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2009/08/how_stehpen_hawking_proves_tha.html

2. admin on September 16th, 2009 at 4:59 pm
47% of doctors say they’ll quit. http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/SpecialReport.aspx?id=506106

3. Menlo Bob on September 16th, 2009 at 4:10 pm
Last questions:

Why, when we are babies and children, we have reproductive cells in our bodies????

Why babies and children have espermatogonia cells in their testis or in the case of girls, ovogonia cells in their ovaries????

What are these cells doing in our bodies that period????

If the functions of these cells are only reproductive, why they don´t appear until puberty????

(Sorry about my english)

4. Alberto Halabe Bucay on August 6th, 2009 at 11:28 am
Thanks again Jan,

I copy this phrase from the article of Reference 5 from Agirreotia, et al, J Clin Endocrinol Metab 2006;91(12):4969-75:

“These findings are indicative of a role for the opioid system in the regulation of sperm physiology”.

I hope that people that read your link understand what means to regulate physiology, from a genetically point of view…

I know that sometimes is hard to convince, but that´s the secret of success.

5. Alberto Halabe Bucay on August 6th, 2009 at 10:18 am
P.S. Your one study that claims a “genome” (sic) effect is a cringe-worthy study wherein a very small number of rats were fed morphine prior to mating – and then researchers weighed the offspring. That’s it. That’s all the “evidence” it offers.

6. Doc Gurley on August 5th, 2009 at 3:06 pm
Dear Alberto,
Here’s the deal with sperm – you can think of it as having 2 parts: one is the “rocket-ship” outside structure that carries the sperm to the egg, the second is what’s INSIDE the rocket-ship, in other words, the DNA. When the sperm (literally) injects the DNA into the egg, the rocketship is discarded completely (okay, maybe one mitochondria gets through…maybe). The morphology of sperm can, sometimes, tell a clinician something about a guy’s fertility – but even that is wildly inconsistent. The appearance of sperm has NEVER been shown to indicate, in any way, the DNA of future children – much less those children’s BEHAVIOR. Your very dated references all refer to sperm shape – and do not in any way look at, for example, the DNA (much less behavior) of children of addicts. This well done article, for example, even found that many of the societal problems that children of addicts suffer are purely due to their home situation: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8735375?ordinalpos=49&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum
If your non-fact-based theory was in any way true, the children of opiate addicts (exposed to supra-physiologic doses of endorphin-like substances) would be giddily delirious their whole lives.

I am back to my statement – conflating separate biologic process without any basis in reality does not a hypothesis make (sperm fertility is NOT equal to DNA, much less future behavior of potential offspring). Besides the fact that your article got an embarrassing amount of gullible media-time, why would I care that you’re so very far off base? It is this kind of deeply flawed pseudo-science that leads to such wildly superstitious beliefs as, say, that “women who are frightened during pregnancy give birth to nervous children,” which, BTW, is only one irresponsible media report away from “pregnant women who cross paths with a cat give birth to sneaky children.” The fact that your entire article depends on sperm morphology makes it even less tenable than the “pregnant women” superstitions. It’s time to resist the urge to return to the middle ages. So I am also back to my original question – your hypothesis is based on what?

7. Doc Gurley on August 5th, 2009 at 2:54 pm
Dear Dr. Jan Gurley,

Thank you very much, I really like people like you, people that respond….

The references, that I mentioned in my work regarding the effect of opioids on sperm cells are these:

[5] Agirregoitia E, Valdivia A, Carracedo A, Casis L, Gil J, Subiran N,
et al. Expression and localization of delta-, kappa-, and muopioid
receptors in human spermatozoa and implications for
sperm motility. J Clin Endocrinol Metab 2006;91(12):4969-75.

[6] Ragni G, De Lauretis L, Gambaro V, Di Pietro R, Bestetti O,
Recalcati F, et al. Semen evaluation in heroin and methadone
addicts. Acta Eur Fertil 1985;16(4):245-9.

[7] Eriksson PS, Ro¨nnba¨ck L, Hansson E. Do persistent morphine
effects involve interactions with genome? Drug Alcohol Depend
1989;24(1):39-43.

[8] Singer R, Ben-Bassat M, Malik Z, Sagiv M, Ravid A, Shohat B,
et al. Oligozoospermia, asthenozoospermia, and sperm abnormalities
in ex-addict to heroin, morphine, and hashish. Arch
Androl 1986;16(2):167-74.

[9] Halabe Bucay A. Endorphins and lipotropins: relevant combined
action [article in Spanish]. Rev Invest Clin 1989;41(4):389-90.

And I am also agree with you about hairspray and desodorants, they can actually been absorbed by the skin.

Thanks again, in Mexico, we say this when we appreciate someone:

“Que Dios te bendiga”.

Sincerely, Alberto Halabe Bucay

8. Alberto halabe Bucay on August 5th, 2009 at 1:21 pm
Dear Alberto,
Actually, it is NOT a fact that heroin and/or morphine affect sperm genetics. In fact, if you have any citation to show that either of these substances (even in vitro) permanently change DNA, I’d be happy to see it. Even more importantly, where are the clinical correlates? Even in the grossest of terms (for example, gender distribution – there is no greater difference in sperm genetics than the size/weight of the Y versus the X sperm), I know of no statistical affect of heroin/morphine permanently altering or even minutely shifting the distribution of sperm DNA. Please share. In contrast, I am sure I could find/create a bogus study to show that women who use hairspray (which is purely a proxy measure of a subtype of bar patron) MIGHT have higher fertility rates. Even THAT, however, does not translate to the DNA level of subsequent progeny – it is merely a statistical misrepresentation of behavior. Conflating separate biologic process without any basis in reality does not a hypothesis make. A hypothesis is generated to explain (and then test) observed phenomenon. In the absence of any observed phenomenon, you are left with, as I mentioned in the article, the Journal of Make S#%t Up. Best regards, Doc Gurley

9. Doc Gurley on August 5th, 2009 at 10:56 am
Sorry, it is morphine…. you can realize that English is not my native language….

10. Alberto Halabe Bucay on August 3rd, 2009 at 1:25 pm
Heroin and morphin affects sperm cells, genetically, that´s a fact.
Endorphins acts in our bodies like heroin and morphin, and they are structurally similar, that´s why we call endorphins as endogen opiods, that´s a fact.
We release endorphins when we are happy, that´s also a fact.
So, with this facts, you can think that my hypothesis could be factible.
Wich are the facts about hairspray and sperm motility????
Thanks for your comments…. you can read other hypotheses that I published, in http://www.sciencedirect.com

look for

halabe bucay

in author.

11. Alberto Halabe Bucay on August 3rd, 2009 at 1:23 pm
Still wondering – based on what? I can claim a hypothesis, for example, that states that women who use hairspray alter sperm motility. Unlike this current hypothesis, there may actually be some skewed epidemiology that I could claim to support my hypothesis based on bar-encounters. Sorry, still BOGUS in my book, especially when reported as fact by MAJOR news outlets…

12. Doc Gurley on July 29th, 2009 at 7:48 am
Do you know anything about epigenetics? Not to mention that the article didn’t report the hypothesis as fact. Granted it seems VERY odd to write an article on a hypothesis, but nothing is being falsely reported. I quote: “..this new idea has not been tested nor reviewed thoroughly by other experts in the field.”

Is it theoretically possible for environmental influences (including emotions, which alter hormones) to alter sperm DNA methylation? Yes.

13. PhD on July 28th, 2009 at 6:08 pm
July 5, 2009

Dear Jan,

Tonight, I will celebrate, this is the first blog that I found against my work, I allways said that is important that if all the world is with you, someone is against you…

I already published some works about endorphins, in Experimental Hematology and Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, you can also find some of my works in: science direct, nova science, prous science, pubmed…. look for Halabe Bucay

Thanks again, I really liked that sentence about happy sperm.

Sincerely, Alberto Halabe Bucay

14. Alberto Halabe Bucay on July 5th, 2009 at 6:56 pm
Dear Jan,

Tonight, I will celebrate, this is the first blog that I found against my work, I allways said that is important that if all the world is with you, someone is against you…

I already published some works about endorphins, in Experimental Hematology, also from Elsevier, and in Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, you can also find some of my works in: science direct, nova science, prous science, pubmed…. look for Halabe Bucay

Thanks again, I really liked that sentence about happy sperm.

Sincerely, Alberto Halabe Bucay

15. Alberto Halabe Bucay on July 5th, 2009 at 6:52 pm
So that’s why the kids are so well adjusted and content! LOL

16. Soup on June 29th, 2009 at 6:05 pm

One Trackback

By Doc Gurley – Top 10 Health Lessons of 2009 «Doc Gurley on January 5, 2010 at 11:45 am

[...] (Yahoo News major headline yesterday, quickly buried). And another among the many examples – FoxNews gave major coverage to a bogus paper that claimed a father’s MOOD at the time of conception determines the future [...]