Can these endocrine disruptors also contribute to gender dysphoria?
Falling sperm counts, declining egg quality, and endocrine disruptors
101–110 of 640 posts
Re: Falling sperm counts, declining egg quality, and endocrine disruptors
#102Is this really so bad? Assuming humans are hit the hardest, the planet will be better off. Obviously we wouldn't want it to kill our civilization, but for the mean time, it doesn't sound so bad with less homo sapiens
1. This is happening in the western world, not in places the population is growing fastest
2. It's not just less humans, it s of worse quality
Re: Falling sperm counts, declining egg quality, and endocrine disruptors
#103On this topic I can recommend the dystopian movie “Children of Men”. It’s about modern world of basically our time where nobody can get children and what issues arise.
Re: Falling sperm counts, declining egg quality, and endocrine disruptors
#104Would 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…
I am dismayed, but not entirely surprised, that you are getting downvoted for this.
If we really have hormonal disruption of the ecosystem strong enough that alligators have problems breeding, why wouldn't it influence human behavior? Hormones influence human behavior all the time, so if there is a change in the balance, there should be a change in the behavior patterns.
This is a testable hypothesis and should not be discarded automatically without being tested, especially by HN forists who are expected to be, on average, more friendly towards critical thinking and less towards dogmatism.
Re: Falling sperm counts, declining egg quality, and endocrine disruptors
#105Would 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…
I don't think Caitlyn Jenner is gen-Z, or The Wachowskis.
I mean, maybe there is a link? It's not inconceivable I suppose, but I am not aware of any evidence, and purely comparing numbers of people is not a very good way of going about this. You will find there are a lot more gay people in the United States than in, say, Saudi Arabia too. But that doesn't mean there are environmental factors in the US that make people gay: they just don't feel free to declare themselves as such in SA because you will get in to trouble.
Re: Falling sperm counts, declining egg quality, and endocrine disruptors
#106It 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…
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…
Right, synergistic effects are
prevalent everywhere in with chemicals, drugs etc. One of the biggest factors is that we're exposed to so many trace chemicals that figuring out the combination of effects and whether their concentrations are relevant is extremely difficult even with the best science.
I reckon we will all be interested to see what the EU evaluation brings. What worries me though is that the EU is known for its hair-trigger response in such matters. If the evidence isn't really solid then we'll end up with a long protracted (and unnecessary) war with the plastics/chemical industry.
As I see it, the chemical industry is the most vital of industries as it underpins just about everything that's manufactured nowadays, without it we'd be in deep you-know-what. The fact that it's had a lot to answer for in the past, pollution etc., cannot be ignored but demonizing it unnecessarily won't help either.
From my perspective as one who doesn't work in the industry but who's had training in chemistry, there are two major problems that need solving. The first is that the chemical industry, especially in recent decades, is essentially closed to outsiders. There are many reasons for this, regulations, worry about access to dangerous chemicals, industrial accidents such as Bhopal being bad PR, and the fact that the industry is afraid to say anything for fear the public doesn't understand or takes what it says the wrong way - not to mention that its own PR is terrible to nonexistent. The second is that the public is grossely under-trained in chemistry and thus it's easily spooked or frightened whenever the word 'chemical' turns up. This leads to situations where minor incidents get concatenated with serious ones and they all take on equal seriousness. (I'll refrain from muddying the waters here with examples but there are many.)
I haven't the time to go into the reasons why the public is so sensitive and twitchy nowadays - given that chemistry is taught in schools - but nevertheless it's a serious problem. The secrecy surrounding the industry only makes matters worse.
It's why I'm always worried about inquiries into such matters. Of recent times we see engineers and scientists being so noncommittal about so many things that regulators and politicians ban things by default before the science is set. I acknowledge that's a sweeping statement because there are obvious exceptions where both commonsense and incomplete science indicate that we should act immediately. That, I stess again, is why the public needs to be better educated in the subject - then more correct decisions would be made more often and without unnecessary drama.
Re: Falling sperm counts, declining egg quality, and endocrine disruptors
#107Some time ago I realized that modern life wasn't that good for your health so last year I bought a farm on the country side with my gf and now we are trying to grow our own food and make our way into a more self-sustainable life.
Re: Falling sperm counts, declining egg quality, and endocrine disruptors
#108As 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…
Tim Ferris wrote about radiation from mobile phones reducing sperm count in rats, and tested it on himself (as he usually does). Banned the mobile from his pants and got one of those attach it to your arm thingies. Spermcount went up.
Re: Falling sperm counts, declining egg quality, and endocrine disruptors
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Yes absolutely! Still doing the dietary things for her. She gets to have hot baths though, and wear tight fitting underpants. FYI anyone else reading, if you have a boy Teflon is really something you should avoid.
Huh, all my trousers were coated in teflon when I was growing up. It was a prominent selling feature.
Re: Falling sperm counts, declining egg quality, and endocrine disruptors
#110> Store food in glass containers, not plastic. Above all, don’t microwave foods in plastic or with plastic wrap on top. Avoid pesticides. Buy organic produce if possible. Avoid tobacco or marijuana. Use a cotton or linen shower curtain, not one made of vinyl. Don’t use air fresheners. Prevent dust buildup. Vet consumer products you use with an online guide like that of the Environmental Working Group. I really want t…
There's a big difference in the amount of leakage from the plastics when it's cold vs when it's heated - so a good step is to put whatever you're heating on a plate before you put it in the microwave (or oven, or…), rather than heating it in the plastic it came in.
Also, avoid using dishwasher and dryer. But some types of plastic cookware is just a pain to clean up. The only solution is avoid buying any plastic cookware or food container completely.
Unheated food-grade plastic is generally okay, but when exposed to heat or UV light, you have a big problem. This paper is worth reading [0], according to their experiment, almost all commercially available plastic products—independent of the type of resin, product, or retail source—leached chemicals after being exposed to UV lights or heat.