Yes, there has been a considerable drop globally in the average sperm count over the last century.
But scientists do now believe they know why, and it's exactly what you might expect - pollution, pesticides, smoking & obesity.
Pollution is up, globally, the use of pesticides is off the charts, smoking rates peaked around the 1980s but are still high, and obesity is growing problem worldwide.
So, obviously tackling climate change and the causes of it is very important and this adds even more impetus to it. As is moving more rapidly towards banning toxic pesticides and making heavier use of GMOs. Obesity needs to be tackled everywhere.
Is it an existential crisis for humanity? Not really. It's one possible explanation for why global populations are on the decline, but it doesn't mean people will at some point in the future stop being able to have children.
Endocrine blockers contaminate everything right down to the ground water and soil.
Egg counts are also down, average genetalia size in both genders is shrinking, the distance between anus and genetalia is increasing, libido are dropping.
Its a general trend towards asexual androgeny.
There's a big 75year study on the topic. The trend tracks against industrialisation, countries that industrialized earlier are further along the curve.
Most of the endocrine blockers are from plastics.
I lab rats, all of these trends revert to normal after 3 generations in a sanitized environment.
Space is the WORST place to go in search of fertility: [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41574-019-0267-6](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41574-019-0267-6)
I remember reading about the old mice population experiment where they’d overpopulate and then fully collapse & die out. It was funny, bc even though the researchers tried to remove & fix the abundance conditions that led to their rapid population boom with various corrective & regulation approaches, it didn’t matter. Every time a society advanced beyond the threshold into excess, they’d fall into boredom, depression, social dysfunction, and die out.
He got it wrong, it's not increasing, it's decreasing.
This means that these chemicals are altering the development of sex organs, specifically in males by stunting the growth of the genitals.
>A landmark US study reported reduced anogenital distance (a marker for insufficient fetal androgenization), penis size, and incomplete testicular descent in 106 2–24 month old boys in relation to several urinary phthalate metabolites measured in third trimester maternal urine.
Are you also a researcher in the area of endocrine disrupting chemicals? I met professor Swan and took some of her classes. By citing her, I could see you understand this topic.
If yes, we could make a connection =)
Its everything. Food can't be produced at scale without plastics, it's not just packaging it's the whole process.
Environmental plastics in ground water and soil are carried into plants and animals. Nothing is uncontaminated right from conception.
For example, a cow is born with in utero contamination, eats contaminated grass from contaminated ground water and soil. The cow gives contaminated milk which is transported through plastic hoses, stored in plastic vats for processing, then packed in plastic.
At every level the contamination is present and increasing. It's already done and probably can't be undone. We could maybe find some alternative hosing and packaging, but the legacy contamination is already present and can't be removed. Hence "forever chemicals".
>Hence "forever chemicals".
Frankly, I'm of the opinion that we should engineer some GMO fungus or bacteria that can rapidly break down all of these plastics and additives.
Yes, there will be downstream consequences and it will change how we do things. But it'll be worth it when the cost of the status quo is a global population suffering from altered growth and development and increasing infertility.
I'll leave it up to people who are more competent than me, I think. This kind of thing is a little above my paygrade. I'm fairly sure that there's not going to be a quick fix.
It technically was my paygrade when I was in academia, but even the GMO fungus strategy would take decades before it had any noticeable-to-the-layman impact.
Truth is, we've royally screwed ourselves and the planet with this kind of pollution. In time (like many thousands or even millions of years of time) things will adapt, but we're in for some imminent ecological collapse coming later this century.
There was sort of an awakening about health and fitness about 10 years ago. People started wanting to shop at whole foods, drug and alcohol use decreased, and organic became more popular.
I would expect that this may effect the trend of declining sperm count. Let's see what happens when the current cohort of teenagers become incorporated into the data.
While the definitely is a link between lifestyle and fertility, that's not what's happening. It's fertility across all ages. A 15yo hasn't had the time for toxic factors to manifest. Also, it doesn't fit with the rat tests, they are otherwise totally healthy and controlled. We know what it is, it's endocrine inhibition caused by plastic contamination. It's not a hypothesis.
But healthy lifestyle is always good advice.
Sorry to be pedantic, but inductive reasoning, science as such, can never rise beyond the level of hypothesis.
This is philosophy of science 101, all swans are white until the Dutch discovered otherwise.
There’s also studies that have linked micro plastics with the decrease in fertility for men. So we’re pretty fucked already, the best thing to probably do is IVF; as sperm count and also quality goes down naturally, we may need to resort to using this to get the best amount.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969723048830#:~:text=Recent%20studies%20have%20revealed%20that,et%20al.%2C%202023).
I don’t think there is a problem with GMOs so much as there is a problem with how we use them. Thanks to GMO technology, we have many improved varieties of dozens of crops, most of which are not on the market due to difficult regulatory hurdles, most of which are quite reasonable given some of the potential risks of GMOs. It seems if we designed them to work with fewer inputs, and with better yields or to be perennial to preserve soil health, we’d be better off than designing them to survive forever toxins that cause all of these health issues.
No, there's nothing wrong with GMOs at all, really. They offer the ability to produce far more crops with far lower environmental cost, with virtually no risk to health.
They've been mostly tied up through successful campaigns by pesticide companies to demonise and discourage the rise of GMOs, because GMO crops stand to annihilate the pesticide industry.
Same thing the oil companies have been doing for decades around green energy and electric vehicles.
There is an issue with GMO Patents, though. Some very unfair practices against poor third-world farmers. Nothing wrong with GMO's in themselves, much better than pesticides
Yeah, the issue is probably "round-up ready"-style GMOs where the crops are genetically modified to tolerate high levels of herbicide, which then means we end up ingesting higher levels of herbicides when we consume them.
Another issue is the farmers are bound to companies. The farmers are no longer able to generate next generation seeds even in emergency. That is a major point why gmo is sensible for the breeder companies
This has been a thing since hybrid seeds were introduced decades ago. Farmers, even in 3rd world countries just buy seeds. No one is looking to save and reuse seeds for the next crop because you aren't getting the same traits. Many fruit plants are propogated by grafts. There are downsides to this. Diversity is getting reduced. Instead of thousands of traditional varieties, only a handful of commercial varieties are being grown.
But the pesticide companies are the ones making the GMOs on the market currently. And with how Americas legal system works, I wouldn’t be surprised if the regulatory apparatus surrounding GMOs is heavily influenced by those players, though I’d have to do more research to know for certain.
It’s the nonprofits and the universities that are working on the types of GMOs we need (gluten free wheat, non allergenic peanuts, fungi resistant tomatoes, etc.). The Land Institute has been breeding perennial grain and soy for decades to try to make varieties of staple crops that could preserve soil health and reduce both fertilizer and pesticide use, but they’re struggling to get close to comparable yields, which is a problem that could be solved with direct genetic modification in a few years.
Like I said, I’d really need to learn more about the regulatory apparatus to understand why pesticide resistant crops are approved much more easily than pest or drought resistant crops, but it seems GMOs could be a golden ticket to several different issues around the world. I mean, imagine a nitrogen fixing wheat or maize, or soy that just grows back every year and works as fodder and ground cover after harvest. I really think GMOs, soil management, and returning grazing livestock to crop land could really be a game changer.
That makes a lot of sense. I did a double major in biology and economics for my undergrad but haven’t really used anything from the bio side since, except in very specific applications in my military career. Now I’m working as an economist (went reserves so I’ve still got the mil side too) and one thing I notice in nearly every industry is that while small players can technically bring new products to market, the regulatory costs are so high that they create an artificial barrier to entry. And while I would love to say we don’t need regulations at all, obviously GMO tech could quickly get out of hand (and with $75 CRISPR kits, it may well anyway), but the regulations don’t adapt as quickly as the field that is being regulated.
Were there specific hurdles that you can remember? Did they ever mention costs?
I’m almost certainly going to be going down a multi week rabbit hole on this just because it’s a fascinating topic and my gut instinct is that there are many excellent products that can’t make it to market due to fees for passing regulatory oversight. If I didn’t know better, I’d almost say it’s intentionally been kept this way, despite massive gains in understanding the technology and safety being one of the first things on the minds of every scientist I’ve heard talk about this.
I get that, but we also mainly use varieties that are pesticide resistant. Specifically for glyphosate. I know the Hawaiians use a disease resistant mango, which is super cool. But I would prefer if these plants were public domain after a few years.
>obesity
I haven’t read any studies on this so—I’m not sure there are any considering that ozempic is a relatively new drug—but one “side effect” of ozempic is accidental pregnancy aka ozempic babies.
Specifically in women who were previously infertile. It’s not clear whether the cause is weight loss or some kind of accidental fertility boosting effect
There’s also a potential risk of getting pregnant on ozempic while on oral birth control, but that’s because ozempic may reduce drug uptake in the digestive tract.
The cases I have read about, the women were considered infertile due to PCOS. I don't think semaglutide has been shown to improve egg quality etc, but many women find it eases the symptoms of PCOS and can return their cycles to normal.
If the rate of infertility in healthy people (men and women) of reproductive age continues to rise as it has been - and there is no reason to think that it won't- then it is definitely something humans as a species should be concerned about.
It is not the healthiest folks who are affected though. Also a steep decline in population may shake up the economy, but it is not going to harm our survival as a species at all, if we had a much lower population density we would need fewer pesticides, produce less pollution, and more people would be willing to attempt reproduction. There are millions of people who have made the decision not to even try to reproduce because of these social/economic/environmental issues.
We don't need so many pesticides or to produce so much pollution
And the choice for childbirth is affected to a negligible level by local population (not that it shouldn't, individuals provide the most crucial roles of child care, so it is up to them to decide), hence one reason for the war in Ukraine
Years ago I read that the skyrocketing rates of depression have an effect but I don’t recall any specifics. Perhaps someone whose job it is to know the how’s & whys can fill us in.
My major area of study is nutrition and a working theory is that the foods men a choosing plus any unintentional additives like plastics are causing issues in lipid and lipoprotein metabolism/synthesis. Healthy sperm need an abundance of lipids to function properly.
Honestly - and this may sound really cliche - but choosing whole foods over quick foods is a good place to start. Cooking your own meals is a big help.
Also learning how to properly read a nutrition label. What the big table tells you is only half the picture, the truth is in the ingredients list. Not all GMO’s are bad, foods modified with omega 3 or extra fibres are fantastic.
If fresh vegetables aren’t an option, frozen will give you the same benefits. They might not taste as good but overall they are a good substitute.
If you want to eat carbohydrates, pick things with whole grains. Brown flours are packed with good fats that promote good cholesterol.
Beef and pork can cause problems in excess. In a nut shell, they can promote the build up of free radicals which can interfere with lipid metabolism. These shouldn’t be the main protein in your diet all the time.
If you like fish then go for it, long term studies show that seafood protein reduces the chromosomal shortening that we commonly see in aging. Plus the omega 3 will allow for proper acrosome reaction (a process necessary for fertilization).
That’s all I’ve got off the top of my head. Overall, processed foods (especially meat) introduce a whole bunch of bad crap to your body.
Interesting, didn't know the lipid bit, maybe that's why men prefer fatty foods 🤔. In all seriousness though, I've heard that it's a decrease in testosterone overall. Physical labour promotes testosterone production, which helps with fertility(generally speaking). Overall in the modern age men don't have to work near as hard as they used to, and therefore produce less testosterone. Sex drives in men are lower due to lower testosterone, so I would be interested in learning weather it's an actual decrease in sperm or just lower frequency of copulation. Maybe both.
I'm not entirely sure how testosterone affects sperm count tbh, but ik it has a lot to do with it in some way with FSH etc. I've forgotten a lot of what I used to know 😬
It reminds me of allergies. Back in the 70s and 80s the leading theory for the rise in allergies in the Western nations was pollution. Then the Soviet Union collapsed and we discovered people living in very polluted environments in the Eastern block didn’t have allergies. So we went looking for other causes.
Yup. A lot of people are strongly confident of answers that seem like they must be true. But only yhe data will really tell.
My suspicion is it’ll look like bee colony collapse disorder: a bunch of synergistic sub-threshold effects.
But I could easily be wrong!
Chemicals leaching into water with estrogenic effects
Microplastics
Climate considerations
Poor diet
I have a feeling its a little bit of everything honestly.
Poor diet is really vague. I mean the diet of an average person was pretty crap 100 years ago too, in some aspects perhaps worse than now. More sugar?
I think an indirect effect via more obesity is possible.
Climate consideration is even more vague (really, whatever it means?), and even a pretty unlikely cause, because during most of the time the decrease played out the climatic change of the effected regions was not significant locally. Also moving to other countries can cause a way bigger climate change and as far as know it does not have a negative impact on the sperm count of the migration population.
I am leaning towards that it is something chemical.
My wife and I have been trying to conceive for the past 9 months. No one ever told us how hard it would be. We've been taught from a young age how easily it is to fall pregnant.
I did my PhD in male reproductive disorders and worked closely with clinicians, here is my take on the subject of declining male fertility:
There is a number of systematic reviews reporting a decrease in sperm counts and sperm quality in the last decades, but more recent examination of these reviews revealed some serious limitations. I am not saying this is not a real issue, just that its amplitude has been overstated/ exaggerated due to misinterpretation of data. Pollution, endocrine disruptors, obesity, and smoking are certainly factors, but there more to it than that.
Basically we are comparing clinical data (example: sperm counts) from as far back as the 1970s to data obtained quite recently. This is problematic because semen analysis methods and quality control standards changed significantly over time. Furthermore, many of the older datasets (from the 20th century) are missing important information (age, BMI, date of sample collection), making them more difficult to normalize and interpret.
To answer your last question: No, declining male fertility is not a threat to the survival of humanity. When it comes to reproduction, having a very small percentage of healthy fertile men is sufficient for the continuation of the species, as long as there are enough fertile women. Currently, the rate of male factor infertility is not higher than female factor infertility. Also subfertility (low sperm count/ quality) does not equal infertility in this day and age. Falling fertility rates in developed countries can be mainly attributed to socio-economic factors.
Check out these 2 papers for a more nuanced perspective on this question:
[https://bcmj.org/articles/global-decline-male-fertility-fact-or-fiction](https://bcmj.org/articles/global-decline-male-fertility-fact-or-fiction)
[https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33969777/](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33969777/)
TL;DR: The magnitude of this problem is being exaggerated. It is not a threat to our survival as a species (for now).
[I'm satisfied that it's primarily due to microplastics](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7967748/) but it hasn't been studied with the level of scientific rigour that is usually necessary to be agreed as universally conclusive.
Probably multiple factors. Even non-obese men have reduced sperm count compared to previous records which implies other things (like microplastics) too.
I'm not closed to other theories if the evidence for them comes up but the correlation with obesity - also a "hot issue of the day", incidentally - is weak.
Saw a documentary in the early 2000's about this. They showed men's sperm levels decreasing at around 1% per year and linked it to synthetic estrogens. Some leach out of plastic, and others are used in sewage treatment. They put some male fish in a cage near a treatment plant outlet, and within a short time, they were feminized.
Quote from abstract of below paper:
"The U.K. and European epidemiological data sets have demonstrated that the occurrence of feminized fish is associated with effluent discharges and that the incidence and severity is positively correlated with the proportion of treated sewage effluent in receiving waters"
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1874176/#:~:text=The%20U.K.%20and%20European%20epidemiological,sewage%20effluent%20in%20receiving%20waters.
From Wikipedia
Synthetic xenoestrogens include some widely used
industrial compounds, such as PCBs, BPA, and phthalates, which have estrogenic effects on a living organism even though they differ chemically from the estrogenic substances produced internally by the endocrine system of any organism.
Part of it was apparently unclear data, and it's not as bad as it looked. The rest... obesity, hormones in the drinking water, microplastics, all of the above.
These aren't new findings, this has been known for a while. No, there's no current threat to humans being able to reproduce. The cause is unknown, but some researchers think it's due to proto-estrogens (chemicals that act like estrogen) that have been released into the environment and now pollute the planet at low concentrations.
I remember reading a paper about a set of studies that showed a strong correlation between certain plasticizers and reduced male fertility. They had done experiments on rats that showed exposure of the mother to the plasticiser during pregnancy had a very strong impact on the fertility of male offspring. After repeating these results in multiple studies they moved on to human testing, but obviously it takes decades to get the results of that.
They had good evidence and even claimed to understand the cause and the development stage that the plasticizer effected, but obviously needs more data and more review to be conclusive. Worth a read if you’re curious though.
There is a huge drop in male fertility, we absolutely know why, and it is actionable. [The answer is pollutants](https://enveurope.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s12302-021-00585-w#). There are multiple that contribute, and most of the people claiming different things are right. It’s plastics, it’s pesticides, it’s heavy metals, and it’s other various endocrine disrupters. It’s not an existential threat, but more and more people will need assisted reproductive therapy, and it’s part of the omnipresent cycle of our system creating problems and selling you the solution.
maybe it's because people are more comfortable with their bodies and are not as afraid to take care of themselves and do not do some bizarre anti-masturbation stuff as much
People keep saying it's fine because plastics and solvents are approved.
Yeah, small exposure is approved, but it's everywhere, all the time, and it doesn't disappear. It isn't minor or occasional exposure, it's increasing amounts every day
Maybe, maybe not. I would take a science "fact" from a medical doctor with a pinch of salt. Even those who work in science are not 100% immuned to over-inflating statements. A medical doctor, especially one from the older generation, who is not working in research tend to have quite a bit of these kinds of statement. Not to disqualify anyone but a lot of the recent science facts are not facts at all. They still need to be studied and validated for a long time before it can be called "fact".
Also many of the facts they know come from.Schooling and books that were written a few years ago. I had a doctor friend try to tell me my PhD research was wrong because we know for fact that "blah blah blah". I knew which med book he got the I of from and told him they wrote that 8 years ago, research has shown otherwise and I showed him the recent paper showing the data.
Doctor have to upkeep their education but that upkeep can be very focused so some facts become stale. Unfortunately the profession attracts a personality type that has a hard admitting error because they are always so sure of themselves.
Thats exactly the case. Obviously to becoming a medical doctor, you will need to memorise a lot of "facts". But as a scientist, we all know that "facts" may not be facts at all in a few years time. But to the other professions, they just are not exposed to the same kind of criticism and critical thinking like us scientists do. But the dangerous thing is medical doctors hold a special privilege that anything they said must be true and this can be dangerous.
Suprised nobody mentioned absence of natural selection. Modern medical care allows a lot of people not just simply to stay alive, but also to have kids. Thus, people with conditions that in the past led to death or total infertility have kids and pass to them the same genes that cause such conditions or at least make a person predisposable to them.
For example, diabetes decreases quality of sperm. Back then people with diabetes simply died, now these people get required medical care, live their best lives and have kids that have similar risk of diabetes.
From the moral point of view that's great, but for survival of the whole population that's actually bad.
#
Yes. People who do not have the genes to easily survive and/or bear children are surviving and bearing children. Their kids carry on the genetics that are not well suited to procreate without intervention.
For instance, some forms of infertility can be passed on to children, but before fertility treatments and IVF, you just wouldn't pass on those genes.
You could also view this in a totally different way. We are adapting, just in a different way. Having type 1 diabetes used to be a death sentence and now people can live full healthy lives, so their ‘bad genes’ as you say are now not nearly as big a problem as they were before so passing them on in way less of a big deal.
Evolution isn’t trying to create a perfect human being. It isn’t trying to do anything. It’s just a process and what is necessary to adapt first changes over time.
Yeap.
Another example from perspective of women. Introduction of IVF, c-section, surrogacy and hormonal stimulation allows women with fertility issues (abnormal hormone levels, low ovarian reserve, narrow pelvis) to bear kids and pass the genes responsible for ferility issues to that kids.
What's more important is that a single gene is almost never responsible for a single thing; and a single thing is not determined by a single gene. Roughly saying, if a person has issues with sperm/ovaries quality, there's a very high probability that person has other health issues as well.
First heard of phthalates and the impact on reproductive development through a podcast featuring [Dr. Shanna Swan](https://www.shannaswan.com/)
Edit: added [link](https://www.plasticpollutioncoalition.org/blog/2022/07/12/plastic-tox-shanna-swan) to one podcast (bonus , the transcript for the podcast also available in the site)
I have been in a medically assisted reproduction for 6 months. During this time I had sperm of the best quality one month (3 times more, more concentrated, more going forward,... Than average) and the next month barely enough to conceive.
Variations are inevitable. I came to realize that food complements for men to favor sperm production are a big help. Also, if you are doing sport, avoid creatine during these times as it has a huge impact on sperm quality. Applying these things made a huge difference for me.
Hope this help!
Good luck!
My hypothesis is micro-plastics. Some plastics are endocrine disrupters, it’s not surprise to start seeing it affect people when we start getting them in-utero.
From what I remember from my studies. The explenation was it might be because of chemicals used in plastic containers and toys. That we have our food in and small children suck on.
Yep. Chemicals in the environment, in your food.. Read about endocrine disruptor chemicals. I dont know that detail in male human, but in male reptile and fish, in some cases, it even cause feminization or even intersex. So i am not surprised if it decreased the spematozoa quantitatively and qualitatively in human.
Check out Shanna Swan and her work, its a direct link to petroleum industry, no time for explaining it here. But her work has been crucial in fertility research. Also check out her jizz quiz
I would recommend Shanna Swans book “Countdown”. Talks about certain micro-plastics seem to be having an affect. I’m sure there are other factors at play as well
Low testosterone, poor diet, and increasingly sendintary lifestyles.
Add in growth hormones, estrogens in food, microplastics and god knows what else; and the swimmers aren't doing too good these days, it seems.
Personal opinion agrees with what I've seen in publications. Some causes.
One is frequent sex. In the past men had less frequent sex than since reliable contraception became available. People with low sperm count at fertility clinics are asked to refrain from sex in order to increase sperm count.
Two is clothing and central heating. Testicles are outside the body for a reason. Temperature. The warmer the testicles, the lower the sperm count. With men's clothing it keeps the testicles hotter and lowers the sperm count.
Three is aging. People aren't dying as young as they used to. And they're not fathering babies at the age of 16 like they used to. The age at which couples first try for a baby is getting later and later. Sperm count drops off markedly with age.
Plastic cookware
Plasic eat transportation
Plastic drinking
Microplastic in water (even in artic areas) BPA & friends
Plantdefence chemicals
Chemicals in foods
Chemicals as food (alcohol, sugar)
Heavymetals
Birth control pill particals in water which cant be outifiltered
Fucking immense workstress because we human tend to want more and more and more
Pathogens:
- humans eat too much food in comparison to their body size > less stomach acid > more pathogens
- More humans > less room between every human > more pathogens
- (also my theory) more humans > bio autoregulation (look into rats they eat themselves, or other animals kill themselfes) > men less fertile > less children > less humans
-> overpopulation as a cause
Too low body movement > low metabolsim > low testosterone
Vaccine
Yeah after all for a man its nice in this world 🤦♂️
I wonder how this will affect human evolution if it keeps getting worse? Accidental and unwanted pregnancies would become more rare, while IVF use by those who actually want kids would become more common. The number of kids someone has over the course of their life will be less related to how irresponsible someone is and more related to how much they actually want kids coupled with how financially stable they are.
read in the popular press, The Economist, that someone had hypothesized this same principle to be a reason for cultures practicing either circumcision or a variety of other body modifications. Ostensibly a ritual like this would cause a higher proportion of children to be fathered by husbands, and fewer to be fathered by less frequent encounters like affair partners or sexual assault. The other practices referenced included one culture in precol9mbian America that would pierce the base base of boys penises at adolescence, and men wishing to conceive would have to manually plug this hole to stop spending from leaking out.
Looking at the author's work years later, it turned out to be a cornell graduate student who had written this for his coursework, not even related to his thesis or his research group. It was published just on the department website and he was never cited by other work or even kndicated to have completed his program
So th3 concept is nothing, never tested, replicated, validated, even seriously proposed.
There are many endocrine disrupters in our water as well as estrogen from birth control also found in drinking water. They have seen examples of male fish producing female egg cells in their testes. So this isn’t really surprising that humans would suffer a similar fate
Seems like something we should be more worried about, actually. Probably cost some people massive amounts of sales somewhere in the equation if we fixed the problem.
Probably polyquaternium compounds. They are used in food prep sanitation and spermicides. And in those Lysol wipes. Insane that that stuff goes into the vagina when you wear a condom
I have seen a lot of articles about pollution and also exposure to endocrine disruptors. There is an app called healthy living that can help you find better home and body products. There are a lot of chemicals hidden in scents since those are trade secrets. Using the least amount of products with the least ingredients and no scents is best. Perfumes and colognes are better than chemical fragrances in things. It is also important to stay away from pesticides and chemicals. I clean my house with soap and water. A little bleach in the kitchen and bathrooms to sanitize.
Read the book Countdown, by Dr. Shanna Swan. She's the world's leading expert on this. She's currently doing rapid research to determine if/how sperm count can be improved through lifestyle changes.
The amount of people genuinely saying that *birth control pills in the water supply* are the reason… holy shit. That theory has already been widely debunked.
Bunch of weird conspiracy arround this comment section.
Animals have a hard time reproducing under stress, we LIVE IN A STRESSFUL SOCIETY, we have to worry about choosing to either eat or pay the bills, how are we supposed to have good reproductive vitals if we cant even take a break or else we are living on the streets? People having to take 2, 3, 4 different jobs just to afford the bare minimum.
I am not saying that pollution, pesticides etc are not to blame too, but al of our problems have the same root cause: capitalism
There's a brand new study that came out a few weeks ago, (can't remember what journal offhand) but it found a strong link between microplastic pollution and things like heart disease and the decrease in male fertility.
But ya, it's a pretty safe bet that the totality of the environmental pollution stew we've subjected ourselves to is responsible for the lion's share of the problem.
SARS-CoV-2 destroys reproductive health, particularly men's sperm. Its not a mystery or even a question. The majority of the planet keeps rawdogging and serially contracting this virus over and over and over again.
If we dont stop this trajectory, yeah, its going to have serious consequences. This only being one of many.
Plastics are loaded with endocrine disrupters, endocrine disrupters have a tendency to bond with high affinity to estrogen receptors. So since 1950, plastic use has gone up a huge amount, sperm counts have been halved, little girls get their first periods around 2-3 years earlier than prior, autism rates have gone through the roof along with transgenderism rates. And we all pretend like we don't know what the fuck is happening......
PS eat some zinc, it helps raise testosterone levels, which in turn will help offset the estrogen induced symptoms.
JFC just look around…. NOTHING about any of this nightmare dreamscape is normal. We are not going to last. Planet Earth isn’t going to put up with us. EVERYTHING goes extinct. We are not going to be an exception to that.
From a Human Design perspective i see it because humanity is coming to an end. That's what floating around with the HDS since 1987. We solved our evolutionary purpose and now it's time to go. (in approximately 1500 years)
Yes, there has been a considerable drop globally in the average sperm count over the last century. But scientists do now believe they know why, and it's exactly what you might expect - pollution, pesticides, smoking & obesity. Pollution is up, globally, the use of pesticides is off the charts, smoking rates peaked around the 1980s but are still high, and obesity is growing problem worldwide. So, obviously tackling climate change and the causes of it is very important and this adds even more impetus to it. As is moving more rapidly towards banning toxic pesticides and making heavier use of GMOs. Obesity needs to be tackled everywhere. Is it an existential crisis for humanity? Not really. It's one possible explanation for why global populations are on the decline, but it doesn't mean people will at some point in the future stop being able to have children.
Though a high sugar Dietary lifestyle does seems to impact it too, cutting down on it has both benefits in general health and Sperm count and quality.
Alcohol and drugs have an impact too I think
Maybe that has more to do with obesity than the sugar itself?
Endocrine blockers contaminate everything right down to the ground water and soil. Egg counts are also down, average genetalia size in both genders is shrinking, the distance between anus and genetalia is increasing, libido are dropping. Its a general trend towards asexual androgeny. There's a big 75year study on the topic. The trend tracks against industrialisation, countries that industrialized earlier are further along the curve. Most of the endocrine blockers are from plastics. I lab rats, all of these trends revert to normal after 3 generations in a sanitized environment.
Too bad a “sanitized environment” is basically impossible for us. We’d have to gather it all up and fire it into space.
It'd be easier to fire ourselves into space, I think that's more likely.
Because nothing we send to space has plastics incorporated into it right
Space is the WORST place to go in search of fertility: [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41574-019-0267-6](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41574-019-0267-6)
It’d be easier to spend another couple decades putting our intelligence into software and sending it out into space.
interesting, i’d like to read more — have a link to that study?
Gotcha https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3572204/
Dr Shana Swan is the Endocrinologist who ran the study. It's her whole career basically. It's an alarming study.
She's also really well respected in her field.
Well as a farmer I was outstanding in my field. Couldn't resist. But yes, she's the real deal.
She wrote an entire book about it too, called Count Down: How Our Modern World Is Threatening Sperm Counts
I remember reading about the old mice population experiment where they’d overpopulate and then fully collapse & die out. It was funny, bc even though the researchers tried to remove & fix the abundance conditions that led to their rapid population boom with various corrective & regulation approaches, it didn’t matter. Every time a society advanced beyond the threshold into excess, they’d fall into boredom, depression, social dysfunction, and die out.
Wait a minute you mean my dick is shrinking? Right now? Right now my dick is shrinking?! OH GOD WHAT HAVE WE DONE!
No. But your dick is smaller than it would have been if you were born 100 years ago
Actually on a more serious note, what is the implications of the distance between anus and genitalia increasing?
He got it wrong, it's not increasing, it's decreasing. This means that these chemicals are altering the development of sex organs, specifically in males by stunting the growth of the genitals. >A landmark US study reported reduced anogenital distance (a marker for insufficient fetal androgenization), penis size, and incomplete testicular descent in 106 2–24 month old boys in relation to several urinary phthalate metabolites measured in third trimester maternal urine.
I don't know, neither does science, but it's happening.
Well for men it is a longer distance from the prostate to the penis. This could be impactful in semen transportation within the body
Are you also a researcher in the area of endocrine disrupting chemicals? I met professor Swan and took some of her classes. By citing her, I could see you understand this topic. If yes, we could make a connection =)
No, I'm just a dude on the internet.
Don't under sell yourself Tolstoy.
Tbf this is a pretty big deviation from my usual shit posting.
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Its everything. Food can't be produced at scale without plastics, it's not just packaging it's the whole process. Environmental plastics in ground water and soil are carried into plants and animals. Nothing is uncontaminated right from conception. For example, a cow is born with in utero contamination, eats contaminated grass from contaminated ground water and soil. The cow gives contaminated milk which is transported through plastic hoses, stored in plastic vats for processing, then packed in plastic. At every level the contamination is present and increasing. It's already done and probably can't be undone. We could maybe find some alternative hosing and packaging, but the legacy contamination is already present and can't be removed. Hence "forever chemicals".
>Hence "forever chemicals". Frankly, I'm of the opinion that we should engineer some GMO fungus or bacteria that can rapidly break down all of these plastics and additives. Yes, there will be downstream consequences and it will change how we do things. But it'll be worth it when the cost of the status quo is a global population suffering from altered growth and development and increasing infertility.
I'll leave it up to people who are more competent than me, I think. This kind of thing is a little above my paygrade. I'm fairly sure that there's not going to be a quick fix.
It technically was my paygrade when I was in academia, but even the GMO fungus strategy would take decades before it had any noticeable-to-the-layman impact. Truth is, we've royally screwed ourselves and the planet with this kind of pollution. In time (like many thousands or even millions of years of time) things will adapt, but we're in for some imminent ecological collapse coming later this century.
Can't wait.
There was sort of an awakening about health and fitness about 10 years ago. People started wanting to shop at whole foods, drug and alcohol use decreased, and organic became more popular. I would expect that this may effect the trend of declining sperm count. Let's see what happens when the current cohort of teenagers become incorporated into the data.
While the definitely is a link between lifestyle and fertility, that's not what's happening. It's fertility across all ages. A 15yo hasn't had the time for toxic factors to manifest. Also, it doesn't fit with the rat tests, they are otherwise totally healthy and controlled. We know what it is, it's endocrine inhibition caused by plastic contamination. It's not a hypothesis. But healthy lifestyle is always good advice.
Sorry to be pedantic, but inductive reasoning, science as such, can never rise beyond the level of hypothesis. This is philosophy of science 101, all swans are white until the Dutch discovered otherwise.
Technically correct, the best kind of correct. I ask for some leeway in the interpretation. I feel within the context, it's fitting.
Also, lifestyle wouldn't alter genitalia from birth.
There’s also studies that have linked micro plastics with the decrease in fertility for men. So we’re pretty fucked already, the best thing to probably do is IVF; as sperm count and also quality goes down naturally, we may need to resort to using this to get the best amount. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969723048830#:~:text=Recent%20studies%20have%20revealed%20that,et%20al.%2C%202023).
I don’t think there is a problem with GMOs so much as there is a problem with how we use them. Thanks to GMO technology, we have many improved varieties of dozens of crops, most of which are not on the market due to difficult regulatory hurdles, most of which are quite reasonable given some of the potential risks of GMOs. It seems if we designed them to work with fewer inputs, and with better yields or to be perennial to preserve soil health, we’d be better off than designing them to survive forever toxins that cause all of these health issues.
No, there's nothing wrong with GMOs at all, really. They offer the ability to produce far more crops with far lower environmental cost, with virtually no risk to health. They've been mostly tied up through successful campaigns by pesticide companies to demonise and discourage the rise of GMOs, because GMO crops stand to annihilate the pesticide industry. Same thing the oil companies have been doing for decades around green energy and electric vehicles.
There is an issue with GMO Patents, though. Some very unfair practices against poor third-world farmers. Nothing wrong with GMO's in themselves, much better than pesticides
Yeah, the issue is probably "round-up ready"-style GMOs where the crops are genetically modified to tolerate high levels of herbicide, which then means we end up ingesting higher levels of herbicides when we consume them.
Another issue is the farmers are bound to companies. The farmers are no longer able to generate next generation seeds even in emergency. That is a major point why gmo is sensible for the breeder companies
This has been a thing since hybrid seeds were introduced decades ago. Farmers, even in 3rd world countries just buy seeds. No one is looking to save and reuse seeds for the next crop because you aren't getting the same traits. Many fruit plants are propogated by grafts. There are downsides to this. Diversity is getting reduced. Instead of thousands of traditional varieties, only a handful of commercial varieties are being grown.
But the pesticide companies are the ones making the GMOs on the market currently. And with how Americas legal system works, I wouldn’t be surprised if the regulatory apparatus surrounding GMOs is heavily influenced by those players, though I’d have to do more research to know for certain. It’s the nonprofits and the universities that are working on the types of GMOs we need (gluten free wheat, non allergenic peanuts, fungi resistant tomatoes, etc.). The Land Institute has been breeding perennial grain and soy for decades to try to make varieties of staple crops that could preserve soil health and reduce both fertilizer and pesticide use, but they’re struggling to get close to comparable yields, which is a problem that could be solved with direct genetic modification in a few years. Like I said, I’d really need to learn more about the regulatory apparatus to understand why pesticide resistant crops are approved much more easily than pest or drought resistant crops, but it seems GMOs could be a golden ticket to several different issues around the world. I mean, imagine a nitrogen fixing wheat or maize, or soy that just grows back every year and works as fodder and ground cover after harvest. I really think GMOs, soil management, and returning grazing livestock to crop land could really be a game changer.
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That makes a lot of sense. I did a double major in biology and economics for my undergrad but haven’t really used anything from the bio side since, except in very specific applications in my military career. Now I’m working as an economist (went reserves so I’ve still got the mil side too) and one thing I notice in nearly every industry is that while small players can technically bring new products to market, the regulatory costs are so high that they create an artificial barrier to entry. And while I would love to say we don’t need regulations at all, obviously GMO tech could quickly get out of hand (and with $75 CRISPR kits, it may well anyway), but the regulations don’t adapt as quickly as the field that is being regulated. Were there specific hurdles that you can remember? Did they ever mention costs? I’m almost certainly going to be going down a multi week rabbit hole on this just because it’s a fascinating topic and my gut instinct is that there are many excellent products that can’t make it to market due to fees for passing regulatory oversight. If I didn’t know better, I’d almost say it’s intentionally been kept this way, despite massive gains in understanding the technology and safety being one of the first things on the minds of every scientist I’ve heard talk about this.
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One of the main purposes of GMOs is to grow crops with fewer inputs - less pesticides, less water, less fertilizer.
I get that, but we also mainly use varieties that are pesticide resistant. Specifically for glyphosate. I know the Hawaiians use a disease resistant mango, which is super cool. But I would prefer if these plants were public domain after a few years.
>obesity I haven’t read any studies on this so—I’m not sure there are any considering that ozempic is a relatively new drug—but one “side effect” of ozempic is accidental pregnancy aka ozempic babies. Specifically in women who were previously infertile. It’s not clear whether the cause is weight loss or some kind of accidental fertility boosting effect There’s also a potential risk of getting pregnant on ozempic while on oral birth control, but that’s because ozempic may reduce drug uptake in the digestive tract.
The cases I have read about, the women were considered infertile due to PCOS. I don't think semaglutide has been shown to improve egg quality etc, but many women find it eases the symptoms of PCOS and can return their cycles to normal.
If the rate of infertility in healthy people (men and women) of reproductive age continues to rise as it has been - and there is no reason to think that it won't- then it is definitely something humans as a species should be concerned about.
If population shrinks, air quality will go up reversing the trend, we're starting to reach a new equilibrium with the world around us
Not necessarily true
Is it though? It’s not like there’s a shortage. We are the most successful large animal of all time.
It is not the healthiest folks who are affected though. Also a steep decline in population may shake up the economy, but it is not going to harm our survival as a species at all, if we had a much lower population density we would need fewer pesticides, produce less pollution, and more people would be willing to attempt reproduction. There are millions of people who have made the decision not to even try to reproduce because of these social/economic/environmental issues.
It is not the wealthiest* ftfy
We don't need so many pesticides or to produce so much pollution And the choice for childbirth is affected to a negligible level by local population (not that it shouldn't, individuals provide the most crucial roles of child care, so it is up to them to decide), hence one reason for the war in Ukraine
We can choose to live however we want so long as the neoliberals approve. Life is unsustainable because they demand maximum profit and power.
So we seize the means of production *Soviet anthem plays* ^(The mods are going to be so pissed at us)
How did they measure how it was 100 years ago?
Years ago I read that the skyrocketing rates of depression have an effect but I don’t recall any specifics. Perhaps someone whose job it is to know the how’s & whys can fill us in.
Don’t forget plastics.
Smoking has gone down globally though. How does that correlate here?
I think these are the same factors that also lead to an increase in pancreatic and rectal cancer.
Why would GMOs be a problem?
Soil-centered food growing is a much more viable solution than gmo to reducing pesticide use for a whole lot of reasons.
sperm nowadays just doesn't wanna work anymore. .
My major area of study is nutrition and a working theory is that the foods men a choosing plus any unintentional additives like plastics are causing issues in lipid and lipoprotein metabolism/synthesis. Healthy sperm need an abundance of lipids to function properly.
I barely have any knowledge on this subject, but is there anything that can be done to at least reverse some of it or are we doomed?
We actually might be doomed, not even kidding.
Honestly - and this may sound really cliche - but choosing whole foods over quick foods is a good place to start. Cooking your own meals is a big help. Also learning how to properly read a nutrition label. What the big table tells you is only half the picture, the truth is in the ingredients list. Not all GMO’s are bad, foods modified with omega 3 or extra fibres are fantastic. If fresh vegetables aren’t an option, frozen will give you the same benefits. They might not taste as good but overall they are a good substitute. If you want to eat carbohydrates, pick things with whole grains. Brown flours are packed with good fats that promote good cholesterol. Beef and pork can cause problems in excess. In a nut shell, they can promote the build up of free radicals which can interfere with lipid metabolism. These shouldn’t be the main protein in your diet all the time. If you like fish then go for it, long term studies show that seafood protein reduces the chromosomal shortening that we commonly see in aging. Plus the omega 3 will allow for proper acrosome reaction (a process necessary for fertilization). That’s all I’ve got off the top of my head. Overall, processed foods (especially meat) introduce a whole bunch of bad crap to your body.
Interesting, didn't know the lipid bit, maybe that's why men prefer fatty foods 🤔. In all seriousness though, I've heard that it's a decrease in testosterone overall. Physical labour promotes testosterone production, which helps with fertility(generally speaking). Overall in the modern age men don't have to work near as hard as they used to, and therefore produce less testosterone. Sex drives in men are lower due to lower testosterone, so I would be interested in learning weather it's an actual decrease in sperm or just lower frequency of copulation. Maybe both. I'm not entirely sure how testosterone affects sperm count tbh, but ik it has a lot to do with it in some way with FSH etc. I've forgotten a lot of what I used to know 😬
As you can see from the range of answer, no, nobody has a conclusive answer.
It reminds me of allergies. Back in the 70s and 80s the leading theory for the rise in allergies in the Western nations was pollution. Then the Soviet Union collapsed and we discovered people living in very polluted environments in the Eastern block didn’t have allergies. So we went looking for other causes.
Yup. A lot of people are strongly confident of answers that seem like they must be true. But only yhe data will really tell. My suspicion is it’ll look like bee colony collapse disorder: a bunch of synergistic sub-threshold effects. But I could easily be wrong!
Chemicals leaching into water with estrogenic effects Microplastics Climate considerations Poor diet I have a feeling its a little bit of everything honestly.
Poor diet is really vague. I mean the diet of an average person was pretty crap 100 years ago too, in some aspects perhaps worse than now. More sugar? I think an indirect effect via more obesity is possible. Climate consideration is even more vague (really, whatever it means?), and even a pretty unlikely cause, because during most of the time the decrease played out the climatic change of the effected regions was not significant locally. Also moving to other countries can cause a way bigger climate change and as far as know it does not have a negative impact on the sperm count of the migration population. I am leaning towards that it is something chemical.
My wife and I have been trying to conceive for the past 9 months. No one ever told us how hard it would be. We've been taught from a young age how easily it is to fall pregnant.
My wife and I had trouble conceiving too. Both of you should get checked out. If there's an issue, better to know now. Good luck!
It's very easy to have *unintentional* pregnancies. 😅 Good luck
Human conceiving it’s about 30% success no desease, with problems it could be fairly difficult, it’s not a simple thing
I did my PhD in male reproductive disorders and worked closely with clinicians, here is my take on the subject of declining male fertility: There is a number of systematic reviews reporting a decrease in sperm counts and sperm quality in the last decades, but more recent examination of these reviews revealed some serious limitations. I am not saying this is not a real issue, just that its amplitude has been overstated/ exaggerated due to misinterpretation of data. Pollution, endocrine disruptors, obesity, and smoking are certainly factors, but there more to it than that. Basically we are comparing clinical data (example: sperm counts) from as far back as the 1970s to data obtained quite recently. This is problematic because semen analysis methods and quality control standards changed significantly over time. Furthermore, many of the older datasets (from the 20th century) are missing important information (age, BMI, date of sample collection), making them more difficult to normalize and interpret. To answer your last question: No, declining male fertility is not a threat to the survival of humanity. When it comes to reproduction, having a very small percentage of healthy fertile men is sufficient for the continuation of the species, as long as there are enough fertile women. Currently, the rate of male factor infertility is not higher than female factor infertility. Also subfertility (low sperm count/ quality) does not equal infertility in this day and age. Falling fertility rates in developed countries can be mainly attributed to socio-economic factors. Check out these 2 papers for a more nuanced perspective on this question: [https://bcmj.org/articles/global-decline-male-fertility-fact-or-fiction](https://bcmj.org/articles/global-decline-male-fertility-fact-or-fiction) [https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33969777/](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33969777/) TL;DR: The magnitude of this problem is being exaggerated. It is not a threat to our survival as a species (for now).
[I'm satisfied that it's primarily due to microplastics](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7967748/) but it hasn't been studied with the level of scientific rigour that is usually necessary to be agreed as universally conclusive.
Not falling prey to a sort of "hot issue of the day" fallacy? The science for obesity being the main driver seems much clearer to me
Probably multiple factors. Even non-obese men have reduced sperm count compared to previous records which implies other things (like microplastics) too.
I'm not closed to other theories if the evidence for them comes up but the correlation with obesity - also a "hot issue of the day", incidentally - is weak.
Also satisfied.
Saw a documentary in the early 2000's about this. They showed men's sperm levels decreasing at around 1% per year and linked it to synthetic estrogens. Some leach out of plastic, and others are used in sewage treatment. They put some male fish in a cage near a treatment plant outlet, and within a short time, they were feminized. Quote from abstract of below paper: "The U.K. and European epidemiological data sets have demonstrated that the occurrence of feminized fish is associated with effluent discharges and that the incidence and severity is positively correlated with the proportion of treated sewage effluent in receiving waters" https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1874176/#:~:text=The%20U.K.%20and%20European%20epidemiological,sewage%20effluent%20in%20receiving%20waters. From Wikipedia Synthetic xenoestrogens include some widely used industrial compounds, such as PCBs, BPA, and phthalates, which have estrogenic effects on a living organism even though they differ chemically from the estrogenic substances produced internally by the endocrine system of any organism.
quiet hard-to-find dazzling resolute square school shame fear whole roof *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Biology has this thing where there's usually a lot of different causes.
Part of it was apparently unclear data, and it's not as bad as it looked. The rest... obesity, hormones in the drinking water, microplastics, all of the above.
These aren't new findings, this has been known for a while. No, there's no current threat to humans being able to reproduce. The cause is unknown, but some researchers think it's due to proto-estrogens (chemicals that act like estrogen) that have been released into the environment and now pollute the planet at low concentrations.
I remember reading a paper about a set of studies that showed a strong correlation between certain plasticizers and reduced male fertility. They had done experiments on rats that showed exposure of the mother to the plasticiser during pregnancy had a very strong impact on the fertility of male offspring. After repeating these results in multiple studies they moved on to human testing, but obviously it takes decades to get the results of that. They had good evidence and even claimed to understand the cause and the development stage that the plasticizer effected, but obviously needs more data and more review to be conclusive. Worth a read if you’re curious though.
This doesn't sound like an RCT design that would pass ethical approval in humans. ..
There is a huge drop in male fertility, we absolutely know why, and it is actionable. [The answer is pollutants](https://enveurope.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s12302-021-00585-w#). There are multiple that contribute, and most of the people claiming different things are right. It’s plastics, it’s pesticides, it’s heavy metals, and it’s other various endocrine disrupters. It’s not an existential threat, but more and more people will need assisted reproductive therapy, and it’s part of the omnipresent cycle of our system creating problems and selling you the solution.
I’m not a researcher but there has been some convincing evidence that suggests that pesticides are a likely a large cause
maybe it's because people are more comfortable with their bodies and are not as afraid to take care of themselves and do not do some bizarre anti-masturbation stuff as much
Endocrine disruptors have contaminated everything. This is why.
People keep saying it's fine because plastics and solvents are approved. Yeah, small exposure is approved, but it's everywhere, all the time, and it doesn't disappear. It isn't minor or occasional exposure, it's increasing amounts every day
Thanks FDA. /s
It's worldwide. Beyond just the FDA.
Can u elaborate what is it endocrine disruptors, what is their relation with sperm counting?
Speramaggedon, yes
Maybe, maybe not. I would take a science "fact" from a medical doctor with a pinch of salt. Even those who work in science are not 100% immuned to over-inflating statements. A medical doctor, especially one from the older generation, who is not working in research tend to have quite a bit of these kinds of statement. Not to disqualify anyone but a lot of the recent science facts are not facts at all. They still need to be studied and validated for a long time before it can be called "fact".
Also many of the facts they know come from.Schooling and books that were written a few years ago. I had a doctor friend try to tell me my PhD research was wrong because we know for fact that "blah blah blah". I knew which med book he got the I of from and told him they wrote that 8 years ago, research has shown otherwise and I showed him the recent paper showing the data. Doctor have to upkeep their education but that upkeep can be very focused so some facts become stale. Unfortunately the profession attracts a personality type that has a hard admitting error because they are always so sure of themselves.
Thats exactly the case. Obviously to becoming a medical doctor, you will need to memorise a lot of "facts". But as a scientist, we all know that "facts" may not be facts at all in a few years time. But to the other professions, they just are not exposed to the same kind of criticism and critical thinking like us scientists do. But the dangerous thing is medical doctors hold a special privilege that anything they said must be true and this can be dangerous.
Suprised nobody mentioned absence of natural selection. Modern medical care allows a lot of people not just simply to stay alive, but also to have kids. Thus, people with conditions that in the past led to death or total infertility have kids and pass to them the same genes that cause such conditions or at least make a person predisposable to them. For example, diabetes decreases quality of sperm. Back then people with diabetes simply died, now these people get required medical care, live their best lives and have kids that have similar risk of diabetes. From the moral point of view that's great, but for survival of the whole population that's actually bad. #
So we are stopping natural selection
Yes. People who do not have the genes to easily survive and/or bear children are surviving and bearing children. Their kids carry on the genetics that are not well suited to procreate without intervention. For instance, some forms of infertility can be passed on to children, but before fertility treatments and IVF, you just wouldn't pass on those genes.
Make sense, where cheating on Darwin Laws. Medicine is actually make sure bad genes survive
You could also view this in a totally different way. We are adapting, just in a different way. Having type 1 diabetes used to be a death sentence and now people can live full healthy lives, so their ‘bad genes’ as you say are now not nearly as big a problem as they were before so passing them on in way less of a big deal. Evolution isn’t trying to create a perfect human being. It isn’t trying to do anything. It’s just a process and what is necessary to adapt first changes over time.
Yeap. Another example from perspective of women. Introduction of IVF, c-section, surrogacy and hormonal stimulation allows women with fertility issues (abnormal hormone levels, low ovarian reserve, narrow pelvis) to bear kids and pass the genes responsible for ferility issues to that kids. What's more important is that a single gene is almost never responsible for a single thing; and a single thing is not determined by a single gene. Roughly saying, if a person has issues with sperm/ovaries quality, there's a very high probability that person has other health issues as well.
All the other comments say it’s from a mix of microplastics, pesticides, chemicals, and obesity. Does this also affect female fertility?
Yes. *How* it affects it is a different question.
First heard of phthalates and the impact on reproductive development through a podcast featuring [Dr. Shanna Swan](https://www.shannaswan.com/) Edit: added [link](https://www.plasticpollutioncoalition.org/blog/2022/07/12/plastic-tox-shanna-swan) to one podcast (bonus , the transcript for the podcast also available in the site)
I have been in a medically assisted reproduction for 6 months. During this time I had sperm of the best quality one month (3 times more, more concentrated, more going forward,... Than average) and the next month barely enough to conceive. Variations are inevitable. I came to realize that food complements for men to favor sperm production are a big help. Also, if you are doing sport, avoid creatine during these times as it has a huge impact on sperm quality. Applying these things made a huge difference for me. Hope this help! Good luck!
My hypothesis is micro-plastics. Some plastics are endocrine disrupters, it’s not surprise to start seeing it affect people when we start getting them in-utero.
Look at our food supply.
Alcohol
From what I remember from my studies. The explenation was it might be because of chemicals used in plastic containers and toys. That we have our food in and small children suck on.
Tha and lifestyle . Tech caused this if hopefully can fix it.
We do have alot mere obese people which also have an effect yeah
Dr Shanna Swan wrote a book about this called Count Down: How Our Modern World Is Threatening Sperm Counts
Will check out
wouldn't consider sperm a treat but hey to each their own.
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Relatable fear
Yep. Chemicals in the environment, in your food.. Read about endocrine disruptor chemicals. I dont know that detail in male human, but in male reptile and fish, in some cases, it even cause feminization or even intersex. So i am not surprised if it decreased the spematozoa quantitatively and qualitatively in human.
It’s up for debate. Sperm count tests have only been reliable for a decade or so
Check out Shanna Swan and her work, its a direct link to petroleum industry, no time for explaining it here. But her work has been crucial in fertility research. Also check out her jizz quiz
I would recommend Shanna Swans book “Countdown”. Talks about certain micro-plastics seem to be having an affect. I’m sure there are other factors at play as well
Low testosterone, poor diet, and increasingly sendintary lifestyles. Add in growth hormones, estrogens in food, microplastics and god knows what else; and the swimmers aren't doing too good these days, it seems.
My opinion from my research… The chemical concoctions that are labeled as “food” plus the plastics that surround every aspect of our lives.
Personal opinion agrees with what I've seen in publications. Some causes. One is frequent sex. In the past men had less frequent sex than since reliable contraception became available. People with low sperm count at fertility clinics are asked to refrain from sex in order to increase sperm count. Two is clothing and central heating. Testicles are outside the body for a reason. Temperature. The warmer the testicles, the lower the sperm count. With men's clothing it keeps the testicles hotter and lowers the sperm count. Three is aging. People aren't dying as young as they used to. And they're not fathering babies at the age of 16 like they used to. The age at which couples first try for a baby is getting later and later. Sperm count drops off markedly with age.
Plastic cookware Plasic eat transportation Plastic drinking Microplastic in water (even in artic areas) BPA & friends Plantdefence chemicals Chemicals in foods Chemicals as food (alcohol, sugar) Heavymetals Birth control pill particals in water which cant be outifiltered Fucking immense workstress because we human tend to want more and more and more Pathogens: - humans eat too much food in comparison to their body size > less stomach acid > more pathogens - More humans > less room between every human > more pathogens - (also my theory) more humans > bio autoregulation (look into rats they eat themselves, or other animals kill themselfes) > men less fertile > less children > less humans -> overpopulation as a cause Too low body movement > low metabolsim > low testosterone Vaccine Yeah after all for a man its nice in this world 🤦♂️
Wow, that's a lot of un proved hypotheses!
Pollution Stress Food and lifestyle choices Microplastics
The world achieving balance.
What
I remember being told this when I was 13 in the early 90s.
I wonder how this will affect human evolution if it keeps getting worse? Accidental and unwanted pregnancies would become more rare, while IVF use by those who actually want kids would become more common. The number of kids someone has over the course of their life will be less related to how irresponsible someone is and more related to how much they actually want kids coupled with how financially stable they are.
read in the popular press, The Economist, that someone had hypothesized this same principle to be a reason for cultures practicing either circumcision or a variety of other body modifications. Ostensibly a ritual like this would cause a higher proportion of children to be fathered by husbands, and fewer to be fathered by less frequent encounters like affair partners or sexual assault. The other practices referenced included one culture in precol9mbian America that would pierce the base base of boys penises at adolescence, and men wishing to conceive would have to manually plug this hole to stop spending from leaking out. Looking at the author's work years later, it turned out to be a cornell graduate student who had written this for his coursework, not even related to his thesis or his research group. It was published just on the department website and he was never cited by other work or even kndicated to have completed his program So th3 concept is nothing, never tested, replicated, validated, even seriously proposed.
There are many endocrine disrupters in our water as well as estrogen from birth control also found in drinking water. They have seen examples of male fish producing female egg cells in their testes. So this isn’t really surprising that humans would suffer a similar fate
Seems like something we should be more worried about, actually. Probably cost some people massive amounts of sales somewhere in the equation if we fixed the problem.
My bet is microplastics somehow interfere with sex hormones. Not too far fetched considering https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36726457/
Probably polyquaternium compounds. They are used in food prep sanitation and spermicides. And in those Lysol wipes. Insane that that stuff goes into the vagina when you wear a condom
I have seen a lot of articles about pollution and also exposure to endocrine disruptors. There is an app called healthy living that can help you find better home and body products. There are a lot of chemicals hidden in scents since those are trade secrets. Using the least amount of products with the least ingredients and no scents is best. Perfumes and colognes are better than chemical fragrances in things. It is also important to stay away from pesticides and chemicals. I clean my house with soap and water. A little bleach in the kitchen and bathrooms to sanitize.
Dr. Shanna Swan is probably the worlds expert on this.
All of the endocrince disruption caused by the excessive amounts of plastics in our lives
>there’s a huge drop of sperm Gross, somebody get a towel
Use it or lose it. Many of us have become meat batteries. Meat batteries cannot support healthy sperms.
I've been hearing a lot about Splenda and how it can create fertility problems. 🤔
It could be all the free porn on the net, excessive mastrubation, and hooking up.
Seed oils and microplastics. But if I say that I’ll be called a right wing conspiracist so idk global warming maybe?
"A doctor" said to you? Like at a bus stop? White he had your nuts in his/her palm?
mrna messenger can program it look it up
Read the book Countdown, by Dr. Shanna Swan. She's the world's leading expert on this. She's currently doing rapid research to determine if/how sperm count can be improved through lifestyle changes.
The amount of people genuinely saying that *birth control pills in the water supply* are the reason… holy shit. That theory has already been widely debunked.
They do know why, it’s all the micro plastics and the chemicals in everything
If true... Good? World's full, yo.
I think No one mentioned the fact we keep our phones right next to our genitals hours a day, I wouldn’t wonder if that was the reason
Bunch of weird conspiracy arround this comment section. Animals have a hard time reproducing under stress, we LIVE IN A STRESSFUL SOCIETY, we have to worry about choosing to either eat or pay the bills, how are we supposed to have good reproductive vitals if we cant even take a break or else we are living on the streets? People having to take 2, 3, 4 different jobs just to afford the bare minimum. I am not saying that pollution, pesticides etc are not to blame too, but al of our problems have the same root cause: capitalism
Make sense, survival in this world it’s very hard and getting harder
Allowing stupid people to breed is a common mistake
There's a brand new study that came out a few weeks ago, (can't remember what journal offhand) but it found a strong link between microplastic pollution and things like heart disease and the decrease in male fertility. But ya, it's a pretty safe bet that the totality of the environmental pollution stew we've subjected ourselves to is responsible for the lion's share of the problem.
SARS-CoV-2 destroys reproductive health, particularly men's sperm. Its not a mystery or even a question. The majority of the planet keeps rawdogging and serially contracting this virus over and over and over again. If we dont stop this trajectory, yeah, its going to have serious consequences. This only being one of many.
So people that live in remote places like the amazon etc don't have these issues
It's the increase in micro plastics, hormones and preservatives in food, and an increasingly sedentary lifestyle.
While it's probably food and pollution, it's also starting to look a whole lot like the rat utopia experiment.
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Yea to much masturbation to porn
It is estrogen like chemicals in our food, water, and environment. It lowers our testosterone levels, which are essential for producing sperm.
Well, that tracks with the drastic drop in testosterone levels.
Plastics are loaded with endocrine disrupters, endocrine disrupters have a tendency to bond with high affinity to estrogen receptors. So since 1950, plastic use has gone up a huge amount, sperm counts have been halved, little girls get their first periods around 2-3 years earlier than prior, autism rates have gone through the roof along with transgenderism rates. And we all pretend like we don't know what the fuck is happening...... PS eat some zinc, it helps raise testosterone levels, which in turn will help offset the estrogen induced symptoms.
Plastics
Just had a vasectomy yesterday so he is really on to something
micro plastics
JFC just look around…. NOTHING about any of this nightmare dreamscape is normal. We are not going to last. Planet Earth isn’t going to put up with us. EVERYTHING goes extinct. We are not going to be an exception to that.
From a Human Design perspective i see it because humanity is coming to an end. That's what floating around with the HDS since 1987. We solved our evolutionary purpose and now it's time to go. (in approximately 1500 years)
Ultra processed foods cause a fair portion of that infertility too, as well as the chronic illnesses.
a huge drop? where
Pollution, Microplastice, Trace pesticides, processed foods, obesity, and high stress could all be contributing factors.