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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

#231

Post by ex_amazon_sde »

creata wrote: post #189
DoreenMichele wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost 95 percent of the soybeans grown in the U.S. are genetically modified. https://www.thedailymeal.com/travel/8-most-genetically-modif... In 2007, over half the world’s soybean crop was genetically modified; a higher percentage than any other crop. https://worldofgenetics.weebly.com/genetically-modified-soyb... Asians are probably eating less GMO soy (than Americans) and we don't really know what those genetic mo…

> Asians are probably eating less GMO soy I may be out of the loop here, but why do you say that? Are Asians particularly more GMO-averse than Americans?

Yes

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

#232

Post by manmal »

collyw wrote: post #98
VectorLock wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you started drinking bottled water, turned off the Wifi, eating sushi and going commando? Doesn't sound so bad, really.

Won't bottled water be more likely to contain plastic traces?

There are reusable glass bottles, at least where I live.

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

#233

Post by algorias »

arrayjumper wrote: post #160
cblconfederate wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> 2. It's not just less humans, it s of worse quality what do you mean by this? that humans not of the western world are "lower quality"?

I think GP meant that lower egg quality leads to more birth defects, etc. So not just fewer humans born, but those born have more problems. A statement which is completely independent from point 1.

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

#234

Post by manmal »

giantg2 wrote: post #220
gspr wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> radiation I don't doubt much of what you're saying, but is there any evidence to support that modern life exposes you to any more harmful radiation than life in the past did?

Yes, there have been numerous studies showing that the radio frequencies (radiation) used by cell phones and wifi are correlated (maybe causative, but not 100% sure) to reduced sperm count and quality. This is especially true when you have your phone in your pocket or your laptop on your lap. Stuff like wifi and cellphones were not a thing in the past. There just weren't many consumer RF products a generation or two…

Having a warm/hot laptop on your lap is definitely not a good idea for fertility.

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

#235

Post by amanaplanacanal »

Lammy wrote: post #124
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…

> when environmental laws first went live in the 60s. I love our Earth and want to protect it as much as possible, and it's incredibly frustrating that restricting housing construction, globalizing pollution emission so it's out-of-sight-and-mind, and economically wrecking large swaths of middle America are the only things our environmental laws seem to be consistently good at :/

It’s easy to forget how much cleaner our air and water are now, though.

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

#236

Post by Aerroon »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #153
hef19898 wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or just stop, or reduce as much as possible, the amount of crap we eat? There is no reason why meat has to be that low cost. Or that we cannot cook ourselves with fresh ingredients, ideally grown and sourced locally. Nutrition, being a basic of human survival, has been sovled for millenias. We just lost it with pushing industrialized food production, of any kid, way to far over the point needed to get rid of starvati…

Nutrition, being a basic of human survival, has been sovled for millenias. Humans were mostly subsistence cultures for millennia (which means a period of a thousand years, so you are saying we solved this thousands of years ago). We routinely starved to death and only recently figured out something called "nutrients" exist in food. It isn't that long ago we discovered Vitamin C as the cure for scurvy and it's the rea…

Another example of a nutritional disease is beriberi. It plagued the Japanese Navy in the 19th century:

>Beriberi was a serious problem in the Japanese navy: Sailors fell ill an average of four times a year in the period 1878 to 1881, and 35% were cases of beriberi.

It was caused by a vitamin B1 deficiency. Sailors were eating mainly white rice (polished) rather than brown rice (unpolished) while underway. A more varied diet eventually fixed the problem.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiamine_deficiency

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

#237

Post by gspr »

giantg2 wrote: post #220
gspr wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> radiation I don't doubt much of what you're saying, but is there any evidence to support that modern life exposes you to any more harmful radiation than life in the past did?

Yes, there have been numerous studies showing that the radio frequencies (radiation) used by cell phones and wifi are correlated (maybe causative, but not 100% sure) to reduced sperm count and quality. This is especially true when you have your phone in your pocket or your laptop on your lap. Stuff like wifi and cellphones were not a thing in the past. There just weren't many consumer RF products a generation or two…

> Yes, there have been numerous studies showing that the radio frequencies (radiation) used by cell phones and wifi are correlated (maybe causative, but not 100% sure) to reduced sperm count and quality.

Do you have some references?

> This is especially true when you have your phone in your pocket or your laptop on your lap.

Are you sure you're not mixing up heat and radiation here? OK, technically radiative heat is radiation, but surely that's not what you meant. Sitting outside on a warm day with a pillow on your crotch probably isn't good for your sperm either, but it doesn't seem honest to chalk that up to radiation (even though technically radiative may have warmed you in the first place).

> Not to mention it seems we have more commercial exposure too. We have GPS, satellite TV, StarLink, cell towers, etc all vying for 100% coverage. However, I didn't look up the wavelengths, so these might not be an issue, or might cause some other kind of issue.

I'm sorry, this is pure speculation unless you can back it up by something. "We didn't have all these things in the past" isn't an argument for anything. It's like claiming that the cumulative number of HN comments is rising while sperm quality is decreasing, hence HN is killing sperm.

> I guess I'm just saying it should be no surprise that sperm count and quality is decreasing if we know that certain RF is linked to it and we are increasing that RF exposure.

Do we know that those kinds of RF are linked to it? X-rays to your balls, sure! But GPS and cellphones? Evidence, please.

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

#238

Post by gspr »

FieryTransition wrote: post #208
gspr wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> radiation I don't doubt much of what you're saying, but is there any evidence to support that modern life exposes you to any more harmful radiation than life in the past did?

Cigarettes for once, can expose you to way more rads than what is healthy [0]. [0] https://www.verywellmind.com/radioactive-chemicals-in-cigare...

Fair enough. I kinda forgot that smoking is still a thing. But it's been on a big decline for years, hasn't it? Surely this isn't some new and growing danger?

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

#239

Post by sep_field »

Lammy wrote: post #112
jonplackett wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Good parenting is forcing your boy children to take cold baths because you need their sperm to carry on your legacy.

Good parenting is adopting rather than creating new life. Birthing a child is the single worst thing a couple can do to the environment.

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

#240

Post by amanaplanacanal »

yudlejoza wrote: post #150
hef19898 wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or just stop, or reduce as much as possible, the amount of crap we eat? There is no reason why meat has to be that low cost. Or that we cannot cook ourselves with fresh ingredients, ideally grown and sourced locally. Nutrition, being a basic of human survival, has been sovled for millenias. We just lost it with pushing industrialized food production, of any kid, way to far over the point needed to get rid of starvati…

A simpleton tree-hugger mindset will automagically solve our biggest global challenges for 8 billion people in the 21st century. After all, it "feels" like it will work for millions, so it'll end up working for billions too. And it makes you feel all comfy and angelic inside. Got it.

The problem is having 8 billion children to begin with. I don’t think that problem is solvable.
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