The stressors in complex modern lifestyle seem to be accelerating and have been proposed to be the contributors to various “lifestyle related” chronic diseases such as depression, heart diseases and diabetes. These have been implicated as one of the causal factors in the etiology of various reproductive disorders like infertility, early pregnancy loss, implantation failures in IVF cycles and congenital malformations due to alarming effects on the health of the future progeny. The paternal contribution has important implications in fertilization and for understanding early developmental process and their effect on outcome of the future progeny. The effects are adverse due to decrease in quality of life and poor response to pharmacologic treatment. The impact of antioxidant on nuclear DNA damage is still controversial. Efforts are underway to find non-pharmacologic therapies to relieve stress and anxiety, and adoption of yoga as an integral part of our lifestyle is a promising beneficial treatment modality. Yoga, the ancient Indian discipline, is aimed at achieving union and harmony between our mind and body, and brings balance to all aspects of one’s being. It is a highly advanced technique for attaining perfect alignment of body and prepare it for meditation.

Since we have already shown in our previously published studies that ROS causes both mitochondrial and nuclear DNA damage hence we propose (in this study) to assess both oxidative stress and oxidative DNA damage in semen (1, 2, 3). Ongoing studies from our laboratory have also shown the beneficial effect of the brief YBLI for 21 days in modifying the gene expression in male partners with couples with recurrent implantation failure as well as recurrent pregnancy loss (4). The effect of quitting smoking, alcohol intake, deep breathing (Pranayama) along with modifying factors of lifestyle interventions like “Yoga” and “Meditation” can, therefore, be evaluated by the measurement of oxidative stress, DNA damage, telomere dynamics and gene expression. In the present proposal, we plan to study the effect of lifestyle modifying factors and potential interventions on the sperm integrity and expression of mRNA and miRNAs by enrolling patients for yoga and meditation based lifestyle intervention (YBLI).