DNA damage, largely owing to oxidative stress, is a leading cause of defective sperm function. High levels of oxidative stress result in damage to sperm DNA, RNA transcripts, and telomeres and, therefore might provide a common underlying aetiology of male infertility and recurrent pregnancy loss, in addition to congenital malformations, complex neuropsychiatric disorders, and childhood cancers in children fathered by men with defective sperm cells. Spermatozoa are highly vulnerable to oxidative stress owing to limited levels of antioxidant defence and a single, limited DNA-damage detection and repair mechanism. Oxidative stress is predominantly caused by a host of lifestyle-related factors, the majority of which are modifiable. Antioxidant regimens and lifestyle modifications could both be plausible therapeutic approaches that enable the burden of oxidative-stress-induced male factor infertility to be overcome. Lifestyle interventions including yoga and meditation can substantially improve the integrity of sperm DNA by reducing levels of oxidative DNA damage, regulating oxidative stress and by increasing the expression of genes responsible for DNA repair, cell-cycle control and anti-inflammatory effects. Oxidative stress is caused by various modifiable factors, and the use of simple interventions can decrease levels of oxidative stress, and therefore reduce the incidence of both infertility and complex diseases in the resultant offspring.

These results suggest that decrease in depression severity after YMLI in MDD is associated with improved systemic biomarkers of neuroplasticity. Thus YMLI can be considered as a therapeutic intervention in MDD management.

This study was designed to explore the impact of Yoga and Meditation based lifestyle intervention (YMLI) on cellular aging in apparently healthy individuals. During this 12-week prospective, open-label, single arm exploratory study, 96 apparently healthy individuals were enrolled to receive YMLI. The primary endpoints were assessment of the change in levels of cardinal biomarkers of cellular aging in blood from baseline to week 12, which included DNA damage marker 8-hydroxy-2′-deoxyguanosine (8-OH2dG), oxidative stress markers reactive oxygen species (ROS), and total antioxidant capacity (TAC), and telomere attrition markers telomere length and telomerase activity. The secondary endpoints were assessment of metabotrophic blood biomarkers associated with cellular aging, which included cortisol, β-endorphin, IL-6, BDNF, and sirtuin-1. After 12 weeks of YMLI, there were significant improvements in both the cardinal biomarkers of cellular aging and the metabotrophic biomarkers influencing cellular aging compared to baseline values. The mean levels of 8-OH2dG, ROS, cortisol, and IL-6 were significantly lower and mean levels of TAC, telomerase activity, β-endorphin, BDNF, and sirtuin-1 were significantly increased (all values p < 0.05) post-YMLI. The mean level of telomere length was increased but the finding was not significant (p = 0.069). YMLI significantly reduced the rate of cellular aging in apparently healthy population.

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Adopting yoga/meditation-based lifestyle modification causes reversal of markers of aging, mainly oxidative stress, telomerase activity, and oxidative DNA damage. This may not only delay aging and prolong a youthful healthy life but also delay or prevent onset of several lifestyle-related diseases, of which oxidative stress and inflammation are the chief cause. This report suggests this simple lifestyle intervention may be therapeutic for oxidative DNA damage and oxidative stress.

Reactive oxygen species (ROS) regulate several physiological functions and play key role in several biological functions. Humans now live in a sea of free radicals with ever increasing exposure to both exogenous and endogenous source of free radicals (electromagnetic radiation, persistence organic pollutants, insecticides, pesticides, high temperature, psychological stress, smoking, excess alcohol consumption, sedentary life style, varicocele, infection and inflammation). Studies from our laboratory on normozoospermic infertile men and couples with idiopathic RSA and couples with more than 2 children with congenital malformations with unexplained aetiology has shown that systemic and testicular oxidative stress and oxidative damage to sperm DNA is the underlying aetiology in all these disorders believed to be idiopathic. Oxidative stress damages all biomolecules like proteins, lipids and carbohydrates and even mt and nuclear DNA. Free radicals are generated as byproducts of mt oxidative phosphorylation and thus target the mt which are both the source and target of free radicals. Supraphysiological free radical levels damage the mt which produce less ATP and more free radicals. Free radicals target both somatic and germ cells but the sperm a highly polarized cell is most vulnerable to oxidative stress by virtue of it losing majority of cytosolic antioxidants during spermiogenesis and being very rich in polyunsaturated fatty acids. Being transcriptionally and translationally inert it has only limited DNA damage detection and repair mechanism.Thus it is most vulnerable to oxidative damage and depends largely on the oocyte post fertilization to remove the damage as it only has OGG1 but lacks APE and XRCC1 . However in contrast oocyte has very low levels of OGG1 but has APE and XRCC1 thus both work in concert to repair the DNA damage. However extensive DNA damage can overwhelm the oocyte repair capacity and lead to persistence of mutagenic lesions in DNA which then are found in every cell of the zygote if not removed prior to first mitotic division.This can have serious consequences causing pre and post implantation losses, congenital malformations and even childhood cancers. Thus every effort should be made to prevent oxidative stress in testicular and epididymal tissue, since in majority of cases oxidative stress is caused by a host of modifiable factors (smoking, sedentary lifestyle, excess alcohol intake, obesity) simple changes in social habits and adoption of healthy lifestyle can prevent OS and DNA damage. Delaying marriage and having children at an older age may compound the problem further as sperm tends to accumulate damage and has more denovo germ line mutations due to more cell divisions and also because of accumulation of oxidative DNA lesions. Thus in studies from our lab have shown that sporadic cancers like Retinoblastoma usually affect the last born child when the paternal age is beyond 35 years. Recent studies from our lab have also documented that meditation and yoga are highly effective in reducin...

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