Robert J Turner

Well, some of you may know that Michelle and I are trying to have child, we are not doing the cycle watch and taking the temperature just yet but we are wanting to inprove our health and diet to increase chances so I have been doing some reading, I now know I should be taking a zinc and a folic acid supplement, not smoke (dont anyway) and not drink (I do but very seldom) so I can increase my sperm production quite easily, I need to eat more fruit and vegetables and also meats (red or white) and fish… See article below:

Can Dad’s Diet Make a Healthier Baby?
Is Dad Eating for Two?

April 9, 2001 — Advice abounds for women who are trying to get or are already pregnant. Alcohol and tobacco are taboo, for example, while fitness and healthy diets are big plusses.

All that attention might leave fathers-to-be feeling left out. But now, doctors say there may be something new that prospective dads can do to improve the reproductive process: Get more folic acid in their diet.

In a study published in the February issue of the journal Fertility and Sterility, researchers from the University of California at Berkeley and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Western Human Nutrition Research Center link low levels of folic acid with low sperm counts and density.

It has been well established that women who take folic acid before and during pregnancy significantly reduce their risk of having a baby with neural tube defects such as spina bifida. Women are advised to get 400 micrograms of folic acid per day, either from dietary sources such as leafy greens, orange juice, legumes, and fortified cereals, or through vitamin supplements.

The study in men measured concentrations of folic acid, a type of vitamin B, in the blood and semen of 48 subjects who were 20 to 50 years old.

Folic acid is metabolized into different forms in the body. It was the low level of a certain type — the non-methyl form — that correlated with low sperm quality, the researchers found.

“One of folic acid’s major roles is to participate in DNA synthesis,” says lead author Lynn Wallock, PhD, a nutritionist and an assistant research scientist at the Children’s Hospital of Oakland Research Institute. Wallock was working at the Western Human Nutrition Research Center at the time of the study.

The authors say the non-methyl form of folic acid is important in the production of thymine, one of the four nucleic acids used to make DNA. They also refer to a 1997 study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (a journal that publishes papers written by academy members) that linked deficiencies in folic acid to subsequent chromosome breaks.

“This confirms previous studies in rats, showing that folate deficiency, if it’s severe, causes impairment in sperm counts,” says Marc Goldstein, MD, an expert in male infertility who is not associated with the study. Goldstein, a professor of reproductive medicine and urology at Weill Medical College of Cornell University, and co-executive director of the Cornell Institute for Reproductive Medicine, says there is growing evidence that “folate does seem to be important in sperm production.”

While Wallock and her colleagues also noted that smokers — who made up approximately half the subject group — had significantly lower levels of the non-methyl form in their semen than non-smokers, they drew no specific conclusions from this, calling instead for further research into this finding.

Based on Wallock’s findings, men trying to conceive might benefit from the same daily dose of folic acid recommended for women. “Five to nine servings of fruits and vegetables a day should be adequate to meet folic acid requirements,” says Wallock. Folic acid also may be obtained through supplements, but Wallock recommends improving the overall diet for the other important health benefits it imparts.

Goldstein says there’s no harm in advising men to take a multivitamin, but he says there is no firm evidence that increasing folic acid in the diet will lead to higher sperm counts or higher fertility rates. He also says Wallock’s study is limited by its small size and design. “The study is deficient in that it did not look at a general population,” he tells WebMD. He notes that the men in the study reported eating no more than 3.5 servings of fruits and vegetables per day. “These are patients who are already likely to have folate deficiencies and inadequate folate nutrition.”

Wallock agrees that it will be necessary to repeat the study with a larger group of subjects. Still, she says the study “probably reflects a large segment of the population. Many men out there don’t eat many fruits and vegetables every day. … We certainly don’t have an extremely well-nourished population out there.”

Other physicians emphasize the importance of looking at various nutrients and environmental factors, noting the complexity of male infertility.

The biochemistry of semen “is so complex,” says Ronald Burmeister, MD, an infertility specialist at the Reproductive Health and Fertility Center in Rockford, Ill. “… I think folic acid is just one aspect of it.”

Deficiencies in the nutrient zinc, for instance, also have been linked to decreased sperm production, according to a review article appearing in the March 2000 issue of Fertility and Sterility. Low levels of zinc, found naturally in meat, liver, eggs, and seafood, may interfere with the absorption and metabolism of folic acid.

Add alcohol to the mix and the picture becomes even more complicated. “Alcoholics tend to have lower zinc levels, which can then interfere with folate levels,” says Rebecca Sokol, MD, professor of medicine and ob/gyn in the division of reproductive endocrinology and infertility at the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine. Sokol will give a speech about nutrition and alternative therapies in male infertility at an upcoming meeting of the Society of Reproductive Medicine in Florida and expressed particular interested in the Wallock study.

Despite its weaknesses, the folic acid study does shine an important spotlight on male reproductive health, the researchers say. Goldstein says that roughly a third of all infertility problems are associated with females, a third with males, and a third with a combination of the two. It therefore makes sense to understand the male part of the infertility equation more thoroughly.

Furthermore, understanding nutritional factors in reproductive health would be particularly helpful since changing dietary habits is “easier than surgery,” says Goldstein.

However, research into male reproductive health to date has been “absolutely neglected,” says Philip Werthman, MD, urologist and director of the Center for Male Reproductive Medicine in Los Angeles. “Fertility [research] is driven by gynecologists … and you rarely see gynecologists who want to treat the male partner.”

“I certainly think [our study] justifies further research, not only in folic acid and sperm but other nutrients as well,” Wallock tells WebMD. When it comes to looking at the potential impact of diet on male reproductive health, she says, “we’ve just scratched the surface.”

Sarah Yang is a freelance writer in El Cerrito, Calif., who has written for The Los Angeles Times and The San Francisco Examiner. She is a frequent contributor to WebMD.
©1996-2005 WebMD Inc. All rights reserved.

I wonder what would happen if we treated our Bible like we treat our cellphone?

What if we carried it around in our purses or pockets?
What if we flipped through it several time a day?
What if we turned back to go get it if we forgot it?
What if we used it to receive messages from the text?
What if we treated it like we couldn’t live without it?
What if we gave it to Kids as gifts?
What if we used it when we traveled?
What if we used it in case of emergency?
This is something to make you go..hmm.where is my Bible?
Oh, and one more thing. Unlike our cell phone, we don’t have to worry about our Bible being disconnected because Jesus already paid the bill.
Makes you stop and think “where are my priorities?
And no dropped calls!

P.S DO WHAT YOU THINK GOD WOULD WANT YOU TO DO WITH THIS.

by The Rev. George Yandell

Resurrection: Jesus rose from death before anyone else knew of it. He rose alone, long before dawn, on the first day of the week after Passover in 30 a.d. It was a new day, a new week, a new creation.

Yet the idea of resurrection was known first in the mind of God. The unfathomable, impenetrable mystery of the mind of the Lord of all creation—Resurrection first generated in God’s unknowable consciousness. The resurrection of Jesus occurred beyond our world, first. The bond of Father to Son, Son to Father, reknit itself after 3 days, and an eternity, of death. Then, flesh, holy flesh, lived; a new body, a new Self. Jesus stretched new sinews in the dark, cool tomb—and all the hosts of heaven simply shouted in victory!

What was the first action of Jesus on that Easter morning? We have a tiny, often overlooked clue—it is mentioned only in the gospel of John; but to me it bears the signature of the Son of Mary, the Son of God, risen in new, victorious life. The first thing Jesus did was to make his bed.

John says, “Peter went right up to the tomb and went in. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself.” The small humeral cloth, carefully folded and placed, speaks to me of simple rituals enacted by people everywhere—tiny gestures of order on first awaking—the Son of God arose, removed his burial linens, and neatly folded the cloth of linen that had been placed so lovingly over his face. Placed by friends who were heartsick and horribly afraid. So Jesus, with tender care, folded the cloth and placed it aside.

Then later in the morning at dawn, when Mary Magdalene came to the tomb, she found it open and vacant. She ran to tell the disciples, and they had come and found the cloths, and Jesus gone. When Mary came back to the tomb, she stood at its entrance, weeping. When she looked in, two angels in white sat where Jesus had lain, and asked her “Why are you weeping?” She said through her tears, “They have taken my lord and I do not know where they have laid him.” When she said this, she turned around and saw Jesus but did not recognize him. Jesus asked her, “Why are you weeping?”—the same question the angels had asked her—and she asked him, thinking he was the gardener, “Where have you taken him?” And Jesus simply said to her, “Mary.” And she was undone!

Another very simple act—Jesus spoke lovingly, directly to the first human who knew him as the resurrected Jesus that morning—he spoke to end her tears, but I would guess they flowed over then—for simple unbelieving joy, not fear. These are simple morning actions—making one’s bed, quietly greeting the first friend you meet, concerned about her well-being—yet this was RESURRECTION!

We can’t know the way, the mechanisms God used to raise his Son from the dead. We hear that the familiar was still familiar to Jesus, but he himself was changed—not recognizable immediately to those who loved him best. We don’t hear details we’d like to hear—about what Jesus experienced in death, about his private conversations with all the disciples. We have only glimpses, little vignettes, of Jesus. But we know why he was raised—to renew all creation—to raise us with him into the life with God we were created for, and redeemed into anew.

Easter is the giddiest, the wildest celebration the world has known. In the immensity of all space, all time, a dark earthy tomb held, and then could not hold, our Lord. Sing with the angels and remember the impeccable care of Jesus folding his burial veil. That care is now lavished on you and me!

This article first appeared April 11, 2004 in THE CHRONICLE, the newsletter of Calvary Episcopal Church, Memphis, Tennessee.

Rather a cheesy advertisement but a really clever idea and its building in its popularity, as Michelle said recently, her bought of depression was caused by focusing on the negative and this idea is an awesome way to keep you focused positively, much like my wedding band keeps me reminded of my wonderful marriage.

My pastor talks about giving grace and to me its like forgiveness but its more, its realizing that there is a hardship, conflict or some other issue that is causing tension, annoyance or some other inability to move on and giving grace speaks to me of giving acceptance, prayer and even forgiveness in one action. To say to someone “I give you grace” is a succinct way of saying “I will pray for you and your situation, I offer forgiveness and I dont want the issue at hand to cause any conflict between us, its un-necessary to let it inhibit our relationship”.

Its a powerful thing and more people should do it. Its rather like the “No complaints” bracelet, more to follow on that.