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Falling sperm counts, declining egg quality, and endocrine disruptors

nytimes.com

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Re: Falling sperm counts, declining egg quality, and endocrine disruptors

#71

Post by adrianN »

MattGaiser wrote: post #43
m_eiman wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are lists available, e.g. https://edlists.org/ When the EU was debating the REACH regulations there was a big push to move to a "don't sell or produce it until you can prove it's safe" stance, but AFAIK it was significantly watered down before an agreement was reached. https://ec.europa.eu/environment/chemicals/reach/reach_en.ht... Then there's the problem of "chemical cocktails", where combinations of chemical…

Is there a reason we can't just dump tons of mice into different sets and combos of chemicals and see what happens?

The search space is pretty big and research costs money.

Re: Falling sperm counts, declining egg quality, and endocrine disruptors

#72

Post by adrianN »

DoingIsLearning wrote: post #48
inter_netuser wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We all know what these are. It's precursors to common plastics, and byproducts of their decay. Majority of these have been grandfathered as GRAS "generally recognized as safe" by the FDA when environmental laws first went live in the 60s. The onus is therefore much higher, it is on you to prove they are harmful, instead of requiring producers to prove they are safe. Nobody wants to stick their neck out because the pe…

The most reasonable work around is to force producers to label their product. There are many vegetable packing containers which do not specify which plastic type they are. There are thousands of cleaning products and hygiene products that hide these compounds in the 'Parfums' label. Forcing manufacturers to exaustively list composition would at least give people the data to make an informed decision when buying a pro…

No, labeling things does exactly nothing for consumers, because most of them don't have a Phd in endocrinology so they don't have the faintest idea what to do with the extra information. The most reasonable workaround is forcing producers to prove safety of the chemicals they use before using them.

Re: Falling sperm counts, declining egg quality, and endocrine disruptors

#73

Post by konjin »

bpodgursky wrote: post #35

Would it be... unreasonable... to point out that the fall in sperm quality, egg quality, and overall hormonal disruption is happening concurrent with a blurring of overall gender identification, predominantly in the youngest generation? Identification as trans or other non-binary status is incredibly high among the gen-z cohort. Might be unrelated social upheaval, but would anyone really be surprised if we weren't ac…

You're only allowed to write vague doomsday articles about things that people like to hate. It's pretty funny that you're downvoted for using exactly the same type of vague fear mongering that the article does but because you did it towards unacceptable targets peoples incredulity kicked in.

I wish people would use their ability to think in all cases, not just when they disagree with the conclusion. And if you're about to flag and downvote this because you think I'm being *ist, you are exactly the problem since I did nothing of the sort.

Re: Falling sperm counts, declining egg quality, and endocrine disruptors

#74

Post by admiral33 »

jonplackett wrote: post #69
admiral33 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

4x is a large jump, is that referring to sperm count? It might be anecdata but given that you were seeing a fertility specialist it could be more valuable to hear your lifestyle changes rather than much of the noise that is out there.

It’s certainly anecdata since it’s just me but it was multiple tests over that period and showed a steady increase from not going to work for IVF to the level where it would. They test a number of things from total count, count per ml, motility, correctness of shape. Everything went up. The shape was my main issue and that was the thing that increased 4X I should say I also took some supplements too. The problem with…

How did you cut out tap water, heat, microplastics, teflon, and the western diet?

Re: Falling sperm counts, declining egg quality, and endocrine disruptors

#75

Post by petertodd »

WA wrote: post #59
jonplackett wrote: post #47

As someone who has had to do IVF for our child and go through the challenge of figuring our what to do to try and improve sperm quality, I can tell you once you start looking into it, basically everything about modern life is bad for sperm. Heat, radiation, plastic, micro plastics, soya, tap water, Teflon, antibacterial soap, underpants, western diet. It’s a perfect storm. If you’re going though it though I offer a r…

Soy isn't that easy: https://www.health.harvard.edu/newsletter_article/Medical-me... There was one study with 99 participants. A counter argument is Asia, where men eat a lot more soy and don't have reduced sperm count.

They've also eaten soy for much longer than others, literally thousands of years(1) at this point. That's more than long enough to evolve countermeasures if it did have an effect. They also eat soy differently, mainly in products which are fermented.

1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soybean#History

Re: Falling sperm counts, declining egg quality, and endocrine disruptors

#76

Post by jonplackett »

WA wrote: post #59
jonplackett wrote: post #47

As someone who has had to do IVF for our child and go through the challenge of figuring our what to do to try and improve sperm quality, I can tell you once you start looking into it, basically everything about modern life is bad for sperm. Heat, radiation, plastic, micro plastics, soya, tap water, Teflon, antibacterial soap, underpants, western diet. It’s a perfect storm. If you’re going though it though I offer a r…

Soy isn't that easy: https://www.health.harvard.edu/newsletter_article/Medical-me... There was one study with 99 participants. A counter argument is Asia, where men eat a lot more soy and don't have reduced sperm count.

Yeah Asia is an interesting one for this. In Japan at least they eat a tonne of fish and seaweed which has a lot omega 3 which is really, really good for sperm so maybe there’s other factors.

Like I’ve said on other comments. When you’re in the situation of having to figure it out, it’s simpler to just blanket cut out anything with any evidence whatsoever. If it improves your chances 1% then it all adds up.

Plus soy isn’t even that great tasting. You aren’t gonna miss it!

Re: Falling sperm counts, declining egg quality, and endocrine disruptors

#77

Post by forgotmypw17 »

jonplackett wrote: post #47

As someone who has had to do IVF for our child and go through the challenge of figuring our what to do to try and improve sperm quality, I can tell you once you start looking into it, basically everything about modern life is bad for sperm. Heat, radiation, plastic, micro plastics, soya, tap water, Teflon, antibacterial soap, underpants, western diet. It’s a perfect storm. If you’re going though it though I offer a r…

You said "temporarily", so I want to remind you that all the same things are harmful to a child's development, especially when their systems are just coming online and establishing their baselines.

Re: Falling sperm counts, declining egg quality, and endocrine disruptors

#78

Post by M5x7wI3CmbEem10 »

jonplackett wrote: post #47

As someone who has had to do IVF for our child and go through the challenge of figuring our what to do to try and improve sperm quality, I can tell you once you start looking into it, basically everything about modern life is bad for sperm. Heat, radiation, plastic, micro plastics, soya, tap water, Teflon, antibacterial soap, underpants, western diet. It’s a perfect storm. If you’re going though it though I offer a r…

antibacterial soap, too? how do you keep yourself clean?

and underpants, how? because of how tight they are?

Re: Falling sperm counts, declining egg quality, and endocrine disruptors

#79

Post by jonplackett »

admiral33 wrote: post #74
jonplackett wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s certainly anecdata since it’s just me but it was multiple tests over that period and showed a steady increase from not going to work for IVF to the level where it would. They test a number of things from total count, count per ml, motility, correctness of shape. Everything went up. The shape was my main issue and that was the thing that increased 4X I should say I also took some supplements too. The problem with…

How did you cut out tap water, heat, microplastics, teflon, and the western diet?

Not completely obviously!

Micro plastics was hard since you kinda have to choose between bottled water or tap water! We got a water filter for this one.

Heat meant loose underpants and no warm baths ever.

Teflon- easy. Replace with a carbon steel pan. Improve your chef skills AND sperm!

Western diet is basically high sugar and refined carbs. Just didn’t eat anything with refined sugar on the label in any amount whatsoever (I lost weight fast)

also switched to organic meat and dairy to minimise antibiotics. Can’t say if that made any difference but at least I was being nicer to animals

Re: Falling sperm counts, declining egg quality, and endocrine disruptors

#80

Post by forgotmypw17 »

hilbert42 wrote: post #22

It would be helpful if we knew eactly what these endocrine-disrupting chemicals were. As is usually the case with such reports, this article is short on specifics. Over the years there have many reports from cleaners to plasticizers, phthalates, and various other chemicals as endocrine disruptors but no one has put a sufficient measure on the problem so that we can move foreword - put regulations in place, etc. As th…

If you wait for someone else to think for you and protect you from all the dangers in life, you'll be waiting a long time.

The "regulators" are the same people and entities who make huge profits off this stuff.

Do your research and act on it yourself.

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