It is a known fact that cannabis cuts down sperm count; however, new research shows that the cannabis drug literally leads to genetic transformation to the sperm itself. This might have some result on the health of a potential baby.

Scientists from Duke University contrasted the sperm of two groups of rats. The first group of rats was given tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the psychoactive element in cannabis, and the second group was not given THC.

After that they compared the sperm of 24 human men who smoked marijuana on a weekly basis versus a control group who took marijuana not more than 10 times in their life and not in the past half-year. For both cases, rats and humans, it was seen that marijuana altered the way genes work within the sperm cells.

In both rats and humans, the cannabis afflicted many different genes included in two different routes. One is crucial for organs to attain full size, and the other one plays a role in cancer and restraining tumors.

However, this doesn’t signify that smoking cannabis will introduce future children to be more unguarded to cancer. One scientist stated that the research is a preliminary study originally designed to check if cannabis would be having any genetic effect on sperm. As the sample size is small, it wasn’t able to control, due to the absorption of THC the human samples smoked. However, the scientists assessed THC present in the urine and found that more THC in the urine corresponded with more changes.

Bobby Najari, A urologist at NYU Langone who was not a part of the study stated that the study is a small-scale one, however, it has regarding connotation.

Najari have already counseled men who consume marijuana everyday to reduce it because of the effect on sperm count. He stated that while talking about the future health of the child, speaking of sperm health is common.

Further research needs to be done and the Duke team is working on it.