Study Says Marijuana Users Have Higher Sperm Counts

As is often the case with medical marijuana, new studies continue to emerge that contradict our previous beliefs.

Despite the fact that marijuana is associated with low sperm counts, a study published in the journal Human Reproduction found that current and former marijuana users had higher sperm counts than men who had never smoked marijuana.

Researchers worked with 662 men at the Massachusetts General Hospital Fertility Center and collected over a thousand sperm samples between 2000 and 2017. The men completed the study with questionnaires reporting on their marijuana use.

RELATED: Does Marijuana Affect Sperm Count in Healthy Men?

Jorge Chavarro, lead author of the study and a Harvard University researcher, spoke to the Daily Beast and explained his team’s findings. He cautioned that the results were preliminary and that men should not turn to marijuana if they wanted a higher sperm count.

“The most important message from this study is to highlight how little we know about how marijuana use affects health in general,” he says.

Chavarro hypothesized that moderate amounts of marijuana could help men improve the quality of their sperm, explaining that the active ingredients in marijuana could bind to the cannabinoid receptors in men’s bodies and support their sperm production. Other researchers were less hopeful, claiming that based on what we currently know about the drug, it’s really difficult to say whether or not marijuana has a definitive effect on men’s sperm.

RELATED: How Marijuana Affects Men and Women Differently

Marijuana remains mysterious, but it’s good that new studies contradict previous findings about the drug and remove some of the mystique surrounding it. Maybe marijuana isn’t the answer to male infertility, but these studies will hopefully help researchers stumble upon something that might.