Latest / The Home of Fertility with Liz Walton & Helen Zee / Male Fertility Matters taking with Professor Greening from City Fertility

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Male Fertility Matters taking with Professor Greening from City Fertility · The Home of Fertility with Liz Walton & Helen Zee

• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to the Home of Fertility.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: Today's episode is part of the City Fertility Education Series on the Home of Fertility.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: And this is created in partnership with City Fertility.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: Together, we are bringing you a series of conversations designed to answer some of the biggest questions people have about their fertility, like IVS, family building, and of course reproductive health.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: So whether you are beginning to explore your options, whether you're already navigating fertility treatment, our hope is that these conversations leave you feeling more informed, more empowered, and knowing you are not alone.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: So now, let's welcome A.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: Hello, hello, good morning, good afternoon, good evening, wherever you may be in this gorgeous world of ours.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: I welcome you to another podcast episode with Liz Walton at Home Fertility.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: Today I'm speaking to another amazing person who happens to be a fantastic professor, doctor, and it's Dr.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: Greening.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: How are you doing today?
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_01: Very good, Liz.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for having me on.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, it's an absolute pleasure, and I feel extremely honored whenever I have doctors because you guys work wonders, and um it's within your magic that it can create such um wonderful outcomes for people really wanting to have a little baby in their arms.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes it takes the village that we're part of it, part of the village.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's having your crew, and you are indeed part of the village when IVF happens to be the choice that they have to make, which was one of mine.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I had to have IVF.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: My husband had anti-sperm antibodies, and so we were told we would have to.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: So let's find out who is this amazing man, the associate professor David Greening, who is he?
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm going to say a little bit who you are so we can we can understand who you are, and then let's go into our wonderful subject.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: And our subject today is talking about male fertility, male infertility, and everything it has to do with our wonderful men.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: So let's start off.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: Associate Professor David Greening is a highly experienced gynecologist and fertility C REI qualified.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: So he's specialized and he's practicing in Gregory Hills as well as Barrel, which is fantastic, not too far from here, which uh I'm in Canberra, with more than 20 years of experience.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Professor Greening has supported more than 1,500 IVF pregnancies.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I love this bit.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: And you have delivered over 3,500 babies.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: So golly, golly, gosh, well done, you.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I used to do uh obstetrics for 25 years, and half of my patients, at least half were fertility patients, so it helped treat.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_01: So it's quite interesting.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, it's quite phenomenal.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: So um you trained in New Zealand and you're at the University of Otago, then a diploma in obstetrics, worked with a GP at the Royal Flying Doctor Service.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: Gosh, that must have been interested.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: Interesting, I mean.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: Before completing O and G training in Australia, uh has advanced in for in sub specialist training in Dublin and London, including working at the Hammersmith IVF unit under Lord Winston.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_02: Fabulous.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: Professor Greeny Hollings holds the highest fertility qualification, C-R-E-I, and earned a master's degree in bioethics at Monash University, reflecting his deep interest and passion and ethics of reproductive medicine.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: And since 2007, he's been affiliated with the University of Woolligong Graduate Medical School as an honorary clinical associate professor.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: He mentors trainees, engages in fertility-related research, and he provides comprehensive fertility, gynecology, and microsurgical services.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I've stopped doing that recently.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_01: So at least we're doing a lot of microsurgery in the signal reversals and tuberlangation reversals.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, right.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's good.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, right.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: Well, this was on your city fertility one, so you need to top them off.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: So he has a wonderful interest um in reproductive endocrinology, PMOS, recurrent miscarriage, and repeated IVF failure.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: So, and you have published this, which I think is beautiful.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna make sure everyone has this to um to reference to as well.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: That he published the roadmap to fertility, uh, and it's a patient-friendly guide to understanding fertility, navigating the journey to pregnancy, which is available as an ebook on Spotify Podcast.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna make sure I share this.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: So you're known for your wonderfully warm, collaborative, and detail-oriented style, offering inclusive pathways for women as well as the LGBTQ families through partner, IVF, and donor cycles.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: So I love you.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: I think you sound rather amazing.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: So let's get into our wonderful subject of male fertility.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: Look, and it's it contributes to around half of all infertility cases, yet male fertility can be overlooked in a lot of fertility conversations.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: And so we're going to explore this what sperm health really means, the factors that affect fertility, and what our wonderful men can do to optimize their reproductive health.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: So I think let's start off this conversation with you know, what is sperm health?
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: Let's start with that.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: We've got some great questions to go through.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that's a good question.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um, healthy sperm have to have four major components.
• 6:21
  unknown: Yeah.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: Good swimmers.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_01: We've got a long way to swim.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_01: I mean somebody wants to have to swim the equivalent of us swimming across the Atlantic.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_01: Really?
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_01: Something if we were the size of a sperm.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um they have to have enough of them.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_01: So what's called the count.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: They have to have a good shape.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_01: They have to have we call that morphology, but in other words, but don't get too worried about that because most spermin make it look like rubbish.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_01: They look terrible.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_01: But you only need four percent to be normal or above.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um they also have to have nice healthy DNA that's passenger in the sperm.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and all of these things are very susceptible to um to the environment.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_01: So they're they are highly susceptible to lots of things.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_01: So we can go through that a little bit later.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_01: But if you want to have healthy sperm, yeah, they're having a healthy lifestyle in general.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: In general, you would expect a lot of guys to have healthy sperm.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_01: But as you said, we start half my work is in novel sperm or male workers, so a huge, huge amount of my job description.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: Fantastic.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so what why is male fertility such an important part of the fertility conversation?
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, because if if a couple walk in, the number one problem is the male sitting on the right.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's them.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_01: Like if I only could do, I always it's my one of my favourite saying, if I could only do one test on a couple, yeah, I would expose.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_01: I want to do anything else.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_01: That would be my number one thing that would tell me, because I already know how old she is.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_01: And age is you know, obviously a significant factor of fertility.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_01: And it I I don't know why, but eggs are as old as the the female sitting in front of you, the woman sitting in front of you.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_01: She puts a whole big bundle of them in as a fetus, and then that's it.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_01: She just they hibernate until they get called each month into older eggs.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_01: And but men, for whatever reason, I'm not sure why the design is different, they're just factories.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_01: They make a hundred, a couple of hundred million sperm a day.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_01: And then factories.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_01: So all sorts of things can affect that factory.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um you know, there might be a faulty factory, so they've always had a faulty sperm count.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe they're born that way, maybe they're understanding their testicles, you know, all sorts of things can affect it.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe they have chemotherapy along the way, something child cancer.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but maybe you know, they're smoking, all all those implants to go through in detail.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_01: But they um you know, they might be having hot or all sorts of stuff.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um you know, and that's that factory is going to get affected really quickly.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_01: But the good thing about spec is that if it really drops and it's modifiable and it's modifiable negatively, you just change the things that are affecting it, and it gets better.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_01: I love watching.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, no, it's super, it's it's so interesting, isn't it?
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: About, I mean, especially I didn't realize about spas and all of that, how can how that can really affect sperm?
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: So what what does make healthy sperm?
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, what can what can they do?
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_01: Oh um, well, it's more about seriously, it's probably more about things that are bad for sperm that they're doing.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_01: So my or guys only say, What can I take my sperm make my sperm better?
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_01: But I I often say not it's actually the opposite.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_01: You want to take away the things that make sperm worse, take away the bad things, and they often don't even realize they're doing it.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_01: They go, Oh, I only go out with the boys, you know, once a month and have a bit of a session, you know, and then have a bit of a binge, but then their sperm count just and then it's gonna try and get back up again.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_01: And that once a month bing can do it, or you know, like they have a shisha once a week, um and they think that's it can't be bad.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_01: It's just a little session of 45 minutes on a t-shirt for us smoking type.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_01: That's 100 cigarettes.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_01: Or they um, you know, they're the worst one that's currently rolling around is the um German guys using steroids.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_01: So they're really common, and everybody on steroids, the males have zero smoke.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's just a matter of they have to stop it or we've got to find ways to get it back.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_01: But that that's turning up way more than I realized um ten years ago.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um smoking that messes it up.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um vaping.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so everything you sort of just and and some guys have terrible lifestyles, they just eat rubbish burning and never anything, I don't think.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_01: So you just tidy up a few of the things that are messing up spurred, particularly in six weeks' time, and they're getting better.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that happens a lot.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: And so interesting, you should say, tie it up, and within a little while it can get better.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: So, how what is that time frame that can be for men?
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's so, you know, it's like it's it's so amazing how the body can change.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, different, you know, like tweaking a few different things, the body can change, and because it's like a couple of months, three or four months, is that correct?
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's three months exactly.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_01: So a sperm life cycle from start to finish is 90 days.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, you change things, they'll get there.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_01: So a lot of the time they really want it's um and and you know, at the start, you said I do a lot of IBF, and I like IV, I do a lot of, but I'm actually a fertility doctor.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: So most people that walk in my door would like to not have to do If and um so you know, I've had uh I'm very happy trying to work out how to get people to conceive natural because you know it's it's it's better and uh ultimately you know it's nice to help people keep it simple.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it is keeping it as simple as possible in this very um, I suppose emotionally and and huge journey for you know quite a lot of us.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_01: As you said yourself, you know, yeah.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: So how how do you assess, you know, how is male fertility assessed?
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um what do how you know what are those sperm results?
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: What do they actually tell you?
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, no, I can read one of them like like I can read a book.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um so like men have two jobs uh in general.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_01: I joke men have to make sperm and know how to use it.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_01: No disrespect.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_01: The female has to the woman has to ovulate every month, work out how to conceive, not miscarry, carry the pregnancy, deliver the baby, breastfeed.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_01: There's so much more left to do.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_01: So the males it's pretty pretty straightforward.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_01: Make sperm know how to use it.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um the number one I see is the sperm issue, and when we do that, we assess the sperm count.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um so we get a sperm count.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_01: So there are lots of sperm counts out there.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I confess at my end of the level, the level I'm at, I get a really good one done, and there are definitely good ones that are not such good ones.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um so the the way to pick a really good one is to do it at a um a unit that does RBF because they will um they're using sperm in their profession, in their job, in our laboratory.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_01: But that said, you don't absolutely have to.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_01: You can do it at a laboratory, it never comes back uh a standard cutherent pathology or DHM or whatever.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Lavity, if it comes back normal, then you can assume it's normal.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_01: But if it comes back abnormal, then we'll do it.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um so and and secondly, from my perspective, when I do a CEMA analysis, I am a little bit more thorough.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_01: I was assuming myself as an angle of the rape sort of guy, I'm the last person they I have they have to see.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm gonna do this DNA test as well.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_01: But not everyone does that either.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_01: So they're the they're the the top three are the count, motility, and the shape.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: No, I and it's it's you know, it's just so interesting because I know for myself at the time, um it was 2005, 2006.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: And um, yes, it took us a while to have uh a test with my husband which showed everything.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: So and motility, yes, it's it's so interesting to see them.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, thank you so much.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm I'm also curious, like so for women, we have our age, you know, it's a big thing that we have to be aware of.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: Do men have that same issue or problem?
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: How does that work for the man?
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's not really an issue for men.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, they sort of we don't get too worried till they get probably to 55.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_01: And even then the risk is not it goes up for a few things as uh as the sperm making cells age, but it's certainly nothing like female age in the child performance.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_01: I mean there are famous, you know, 18, 90 year old fathers out there.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I think Charlie Chapman was 93 or something.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um there's a few famous fathers, Robert De Niro recently.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um get over 55.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_01: There are some issues as well as but um not the same.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: Not the same.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: How interesting.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: This episode is part of the City Fertility Education series on the Homo fertility in partnership with City Fertility.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: Male fertility is such an important part of the fertility conversation, and yet it can sometimes be overlooked.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: Sperm health can be influenced by many different factors, and it's very important to understand what healthy sperm is, what it means, how male fertility is assessed, and when to seek advice can provide important information when you are trying to conceive.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: City Fertility supports both individuals and couples with fertility assessment and personalized care.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: Helping to look at the whole fertility picture rather than just placing the focus on just one partner.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: So if you'd like to learn more about male fertility and sperm health, visit cityfertility.com.au.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: Now let's get back to that fabulous conversation with Dr.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: Greening.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_00: So when you have an individual or even a couple and they come to see you, um, what what is um when should they come and seek the fertility assessment?
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_01: So it's I'd say there's probably three big groups.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_01: Group one, China can say, trying for 12 months, never pregnant before, and 12 months of trying and they're not pregnant.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's our cutoff.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_01: Primary infertility, 12 months of trying, having regular intercourse, having sex, not getting pregnant.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_01: If you previously had a baby, you you can try for six months, and if you're not pregnant, you can't see it, get a referral to a doctor.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_01: If you're 35 or older and you're female, take like around six months trying, can't see some time so I don't and then the last one is if you think there's some risk factor in your life that's probably obviously an undersealed test test when you're a two-year-old now to surgery to put your testicles down.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, probably best not to fart around.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_01: If you know you've got polycystic ovary, or sorry, PMOS, the MOS, the new one.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um, if you know you've got that, if you've got severe endometriosis, you don't have to spend a year trying.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um so I would suggest people if if you have any concerns in my previously I say if you previously had a pelvic inflammatory disease in this TV familiar, you probably don't have to wait 12 months to only go and see someone earlier.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_01: So if you if you have concerns that you might have risk factors, um you know ruptured of pendults when you're a 10-year-old female, and you know it's pretty bad, you're probably gonna have scarring so I wouldn't I wouldn't necessarily wait 12 months.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, absolutely.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I I remember talking to a gentleman recently, and um, you know, they'd been trying for quite some time, and uh he as a young man was quite a sporty young man, and uh of course um I think he'd had a few ruptures, and so it wasn't he'd been trying and couldn't understand why.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: And then it was realizing then that he was, you know, as he said, firing blanks, and that was a miss massive journey for him.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, it it works so many different ways, and luckily they've got several kids now, but you know, it's it's sometimes you don't realize you have an issue, do you?
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_01: No, in fact, most men very or even the guys with the low spam counts or low motility or some male factor, most of them don't know.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_01: Everything seems to function normally.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so they just don't think it's them.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um, that in fact they're either you know shooting blanks or low count or some other empties and you know, stuff like that.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, say it all the time.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_01: They're like, but but but everything seems to work all right.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, yeah, but the sperm count's one million sperm count.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, you don't know what you don't know until you have to know.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 20:21
  unknown: Good quote.
• 20:22
  unknown: Good quote.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: So what would you say?
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, with all of the amazing people you've seen that come to see you for support, what are some of those common misconceptions around about male fertility?
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_01: Well, uh I would say the single biggest one is that lifestyle can't affect spam.
• 20:45
  unknown: Right.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_01: So guys just have no idea.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_01: Like if you took 10 seconds and Googled it, you'd realize lots of things in your lifestyle can affect spin.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_01: So that's number one.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_01: I just don't think it does.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_01: Because the trouble with with most things in medicine is not everybody gets affected the same.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_01: So you've got a I don't know, let's say a 30-year-old plumber, he goes out with his mates on the weekend or Friday nights regularly, they've got three kids, he's having the same drop drinking as them, it's a good drink every night.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_01: And and yet when I do a spam cut, it's low because alcohol affects different people differently, just like it affects people mentally.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so that's definitely one of them.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_01: So everyone's a little bit different.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um number two, um, abstaining is really bad for spoken.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_01: So uh everyone thinks that you know if they store it up and they'll have a much more fertile figure count and correct the spectrum.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_01: It's uh utterly wrong.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_01: So just to say when I wrote that book, the roadmates utility, yeah, um I wrote it to try and get men involved.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_01: I I I thought it was always saying to me that the females have to do all the heavy lifting.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: They did all the hard work when it came to facilities.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_01: The guys were sort of a bit like passengers sitting in the back seat of the car and chest doing all the drive.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_01: So I wrote a conversation.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_01: I really liked it when couples come in and they're working together and sort of like sharing the driving out front.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_01: And uh and the reason I wrote it was I did a big study on Sperm.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_01: And um I uh presented my study in Amsterdam at a big world conference, and the reporters loved it.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_01: And one of them said you should write a book.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_01: And and my study was interesting.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_01: I think what I did was very quickly, I saw a couple who had 32 failed IBF science.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_01: And his sperm account was great.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_01: So they had so-called unexplained infertility, there might have been a bit of tuberal disease, they weren't sure.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_01: And ultimately they ended up in IBF for a decade.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_01: And so we did this new fancy test on the sperm DNA in the strike, and it came back really tight.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_01: And yet his sperm count was terrific.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_01: So for 10 years no one had looked at him ever again and just said, No, it's great, checked it once in a blue moon, it's normal.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_01: But then his new test hit, and we were like, what do we do about it?
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_01: And so I actually came up with the idea to try and help it to get the sperm through a bit quicker.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_01: So I said, How would you feel about instead of abstaining for a few days?
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_01: Just eject it every day for a week and we test the seventh day.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_01: And his sperm count dropped a bit, his sperm motility went up quite a bit, and his sperm DNA damage dropped down to the normal range.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_01: So the following month we tried just tracking her ovulation, looked at when she was ovulating, got the timing right for the intercourse and ejaculating, and I got a baby.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_01: A couple years later, same thing.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, how amazing.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_01: But then I did a study.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_01: So normal DNA damage is less than 15%.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_01: Uh 15 to 30 is raised above 30%.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_01: So I took 118 men who are 30 above 30%, got them to do the seven-day study, compared their standard day three abstaining with seminar analysis and sperm DNA damage, and then I did seven days in a row and tested on seven and compared that sperm count, motility attack, and the DNA.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_01: And eight and two percent of men dramatically approved their DNA damage.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_01: And over overall the sperm count's dropped a bit, and sperm motility overall approved significantly.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_01: And when I presented it in Amsterdam as an oral presentation, I said I just wanted to look at the animal journals.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_01: There's tons of animal breeding journals about how to get the best breeding rates out of animals.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_01: And none of it was abstaining.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_01: It's all all published, been published for decades.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_01: So you know, we're we're just a fancy mammal, you know, a bit cleverer than most.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_01: We're still an animal.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_02: Indeed, we are.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's how I wrote the book.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_01: Uh like one of the important should write a book for me because there just wasn't anything out there.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_01: So I wrote a book that I thought the females could read and then give it to their parents.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, I love that.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to make sure that's shared because I hadn't heard of that before.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: But and also with the sperm, uh that makes so much sense.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's just basically to help the flow, because the more we can help the flow, the more I suppose everything is supported.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_01: So well, think of it as a very free it's a factory, right?
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_01: So you're making millions of sperm, in fact, you know, on average, somewhere between 100 to 200 million sperm a day.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_01: And then you've got to make the that very brand new DNA in the head of the sperm has to be packaged up in a very tight little compact in the head of the sperm and has to get these bodyguard proteins, and then around the sperm has these antioxidant fluids.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's a very clever place.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_01: But if you let it sit there for two night, all the bad things get out of it.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_01: It is actually quite a fragile remote.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, gosh, we have such amazing bodies, don't we?
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, I bet.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_00: I bet you do an amazing thing.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_00: So practically, then what can men do to support their sperm and their fertility and everything that they can do to be at their optimum?
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's good.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_01: First things first is just spend just five minutes thinking about them.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_01: Just think, what's my sperm health like?
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_01: Am I doing anything that could be affecting my my sperm health?
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_01: And it's it doesn't take a rocket science to work it out.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_01: Like again, I'll go through them.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_01: Alcohol, smoking, marijuana, just think of all the sort of naughty things.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_01: I had cocaine the other day, a guy does cocaine on the weekends, terrible for spring.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um great for parties, terrible for spring.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um and you know, and then he's throwing a bit of alcohol, you know, even regular alcohol, particularly binging.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, guy the other day didn't even mention shisha until I looked at his sperm and I thought that the straight resistance is really bad.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_01: The utility is great.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_01: Are you doing shisha?
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_01: And he said, Why do you ask that?
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_01: I said, because it looks like a shisha, which is a huge blouse for nicotine.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_01: And uh he went, I do actually.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_01: It's only once a week.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um and then you don't have the simple things.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_01: People, hot bars, like not many people wear hot bars in a long time.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_01: The cycling well, not that impressed by that.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_01: The abstaining well, if you ask them, they often uh they often think about that.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, they might abstain until they get too close to observation.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um you know, just um really simple things to tell under you, just going boxes is good.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_01: Uh they say you should have you know at night when you sleep, it's important that you don't have hot testicles.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_01: So if your body temperature is 37 and your testicle temperature is 32 degrees, right?
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_01: But if you get that heated up because it's you know tucked up inside and the hot doom is the research and and tight underneath and the other one, the other one is if you get to be better at east and you have a lot of fat around there, yeah, it can have they can hit them up.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_01: So they need to stay for you to think about that.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that would be the the simple things.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_01: I think just think what is it about my lifestyle that I could potentially change.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_01: And then, you know, fresh food and eating well and stuff like that, it's probably helpful as well, ultimately.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_01: But um, not quite such a big thing as taking out the day of things.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, just being aware, isn't it?
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um being aware is good life.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I love it.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_00: So, Professor Greening, is there anything else that I possibly haven't asked that I have that I need to ask, or anything else that um listeners need to know?
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so you're focused on spam, but the the important thing is to look sideways at your female partner.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and the number one thing that drives what I do is female age.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_00: Right, okay.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_01: So female age determines everything because even if you've got a low spam count, I can obviously fix that.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_01: But if your partner's 42 and she's left it to 42 to try and have a baby, so just maybe men should think about their own health.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe just thinking about fertility and her age, because that is the single biggest thing.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_01: Uh you know, as I said at the start, one test I do is seminar analysis, right?
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_01: But one thing all doctors in the whole world do when a couple walks in their room is they look at her date of birth.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_01: They all do it.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_01: So first thing we look at, we don't, you know, a name's a name, but we want to know how old she is because it's really going to tell you how difficult this fertility genuine is going to be.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe as me just thinking, you know, they want to have kids as much as the the parents, but just maybe bringing the conversation up earlier in a relationship before time becomes a real problem, a huge equity.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_00: Guys, that brings me back to when I first stepped into the fertility space, and I'm five years older than my husband, so just like, oh dear.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_00: So um, Professor Greening, what would be like one or two key takeaways um that people can maybe action or really walk away with today from our conversation?
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, okay.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_01: So ultimately for males, they hate doing it.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_01: Get a spoke count early on.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_01: If you if you've just got some fertility concerns, but if you go to anyone, they're going to order it anyway.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_01: But it's um don't put it off because it drives me crazy how often a woman's walked in and done all the tests due diligence and organizing, tracking her ovulation, got the flow app and all sorts of stuff, and then suddenly he hasn't done it.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um it takes two to ten go and the males are really good.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_01: So I would I would say uh get involved as meme.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_01: Secondly, for couples, um you know, just just investigate quickly.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't take long to have a look at um to put something into uh search engine and have a look.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_01: But just be mindful, um it's common.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_01: People forget how common infidelity is.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_01: Something like one in five, one in six couples.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's what they're saying.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_01: One in six.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_01: I would suggest you know that number's been around since I was a young adopter.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_01: I think it might even be a bit higher than that, because we're 18, babies later.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so maybe um it's important to um to realise that you're not alone, but nobody talks about.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_01: But just it's it's it's more common than just many, many, many um medical disorders that you everyone's heard of.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's more common than asthma.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um so if you think there's something wrong, don't hesitate.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_01: Get in and if we do a checkup and everything's great, I'm just gonna tell you to sit quiet for a bit longer, you know.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_01: I like doing tests and I'm very happy doing normal tests when they come back normal.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_01: People always think I'm looking for the bad ones, but uh when you identify normal and discard it, it really helps amazing things.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's not about looking for what's bad, it's about looking for what's good.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, I have a saying after him that I if you go to a car crush, if you crop and they breathe lize, you know, eight to ten times the legal C and this and you know that's but if you breathe lize something negative, zero.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_01: You know, alcohol was not called.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_01: It's a negative test, but it's helpful.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely, it is so helpful.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_00: Get your sperm test.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_00: If you think something's wrong, get it checked.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_00: And you're not alone, which is one of my biggest things, you know.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a team sport, takes two.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_00: Let's come together.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_00: So, Professor Greening, thank you so much for your time today.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_00: I know you are busy being pulled in all sorts of different ways to do the amazing work you do.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for taking the time out today to to chat to me and to share about male sperm and everything that they can do about it and and and how to keep their sperm as healthy as possible.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, and and certainly it can make a huge difference.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_01: Love that.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_00: And you can make a huge difference.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_00: And with that, um, thank you.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_00: And with that, I'm leaving with you today.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_00: You know, remember, you are not alone.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_00: Get your sperm done as early as possible if you're a man out there.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_00: And if you think there's something wrong, quickly get it checked.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_00: Because actually, we're not looking for something wrong, as Dr.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_00: Greening just said.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_00: We're looking for what's good, and I think that's lovely.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_00: So, with that, have a beautiful, beautiful day and sending love to everybody.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for joining me for another episode of the City Fertility Education series, which is on the home of fertility.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_00: This is created in partnership with City Fertility.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_00: I do hope today's conversation has given you something extremely useful to take away.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_00: Perhaps it's a better understanding of your fertility, maybe it's a new question, or simply more confidence in knowing what your options might be.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_00: Because sometimes one conversation can be the thread that leads you to the information, support, or next step that's right for you.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_00: If you'd like to learn more about City Facility and the services that they offer, please visit cityfactivity.com.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_00: Please share it with them.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_00: Wherever you go on your podcast.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for listening.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll see you back here.