Young whippersnappers tap iPads while old men work sudoku puzzles, shifting uneasily in their seats.Orthopedic footwear mingles with hipster skinny jeans as a battle of bifocals and vanity glasses unfolds in a Murray Hill waiting room.
The mood is anxious as men both vernal and venerable wait to see urologist and superstar sperm doc Joseph Alukal.
Until three months ago, things were status quo for the 37-year-old fertility phenom, who typically addresses issues like performance anxiety, cancer and sexual dysfunction.
But a recent landmark study in the science journal Nature, linking advanced paternal age with higher incidents of autism and other maladies in offspring, has sent young New York men into a tailspin. And their little swimmers straight to Alukal’s test tubes.
“People keep asking me, ‘Doc, should I freeze my sperm? What if I meet the right girl 10 or 15 years from now?'” says Dr. Alukal, director of male reproductive health at NYU Langone Medical Center.
“It’s absolutely something I’m seeing more of in my office.”
Nearly two dozen men have come in since the research came out, and “more than 50 percent of the guys who come to me actually do it,” he says. Read full article.