Men should abstain from drinking at least three months prior to conceiving

Re:Men should abstain from drinking at least three months pr... by biasedestimate on Thursday December 14, 2023 @11:52AM (#38643519)

Perhaps important to note that this result comes from a lab experiment done on mice, with as far as I can tell N=24 mice split in a control and two treatment conditions. I would be very careful concluding anything from that study about what human males should or should not do.

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Re:Men should abstain from drinking at least three months pr... by GuB-42 on Thursday December 14, 2023 @12:35PM (#38644229)

I think it is very important to mention.

I don't know how accurate mouse models are for alcohol, but alcohol tolerance varies widely among animals, and even between humans. We have complex metabolic pathways for alcohol, we even get quite a lot of calories out of it. And while both mice and humans are mammals, I guess there are significant differences regarding reproduction too.

So going to a study on mice to some conclusions like: you should abstain from drinking for at least 3 months, and quantitative measurements like "moderate drinking", which, at about 3 drinks/day is more than "moderate" to me.

After a quick look at the paper, there is no such conclusion. When it comes to humans, there is not much more than "maybe it is something worth looking into".

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Re:Men should abstain from drinking at least three months pr... by heyoni on Thursday December 14, 2023 @12:01PM (#38643704)

Tell you what though, I drank more than I should have most of my adult life and now have a kid with a single point mutation that'll affect her in all sorts of ways and I will never stop thinking about whether or not this could have been avoided by not drinking.

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Re:Men should abstain from drinking at least three months pr... by thehappypm on Thursday December 14, 2023 @07:14PM (#38649373)

I think you can forgive yourself. Single-point mutations are just about the most random things that can go wrong. A cosmic ray can cause one.

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Re:Men should abstain from drinking at least three months pr... by hinkley on Thursday December 14, 2023 @01:04PM (#38644707)

Or the shorthand:

… in mice.

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