Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Falling sperm counts, declining egg quality, and endocrine disruptors

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

261–270 of 640 posts

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

#261

Post by Retric »

gameswithgo wrote: post #191
DoreenMichele wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

we've been eating GMOs for millenia. That's a little like saying "There's zero difference between traditional animal husbandry and cloning." Sorry, I think there is a meaningful distinction between traditional human intervention in plant varieties and the more recent intervention called GMO. Most of the world seems to agree that there is a distinction, enough so that we invented new language for what it is we are doi…

genes get arbitrarily modified by evolution, breeding, or manual intervention. could a gmo food cause a problem? sure, so could a food whose genes were modified by breeding or accident of nature

Evolution and selective breeding don’t arbitrarily modify DNA. The actual methods are small random changes, copying from some other location possibly backwards, or removing segments. GMO significantly expands what kinds of changes are possible.

In practice the difference is generally not that significant, but there is some increase in risks.

Personally, I would prefer a different label for new GMO foods. Presumably, the odds of finding an undiscovered issue drops over time. So using a different label for the first 20 years is reasonably appropriate. Plenty of people are going to take slightly higher risks, so they can benefit from and thus test new cultivars.

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

#262

Post by voqv »

giantg2 wrote: post #225
voqv wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if it's Teflon in general or damaged Teflon pans - many people do not used them correctly, overheat them and have damaged coatings that leak chemicals. You can go check perfectly fine pans having 1-star Amazon reviews "Pan sticking after a month!".

Here's something interesting to think about. Did you ever hear of a canary in a coal mine? The miners would take birds in with them to alert them to dangers gasses. If there were dangerous gasses he bird would typically die before the miners did. This is because the bird has very high performance lungs so that they can supply enough oxygen to beat their wings quickly. You basically can't own a bird in an appartment a…

That last paragraph does not seem to be true. Well only if you're an "an absent-minded person" according to:

https://www.petcoach.co/article/teflon-toxicity-ptfe-toxicos...

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

#263

Post by Onewildgamer »

nimbleal wrote: post #246
74d-fe6-2c6 wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If those things are bad for sperm count I'd expect them to be bad for the rest of the body as well. Sperm count is probably just a convenient metric which reveals the detrimental impact.

In my (layman’s) review of related literature, this seems to be the case. I’ve gone through phases of looking into for eg. what might optimise lean mass, testosterone, longevity, decrease cancer risk, sperm count etc. It’s all basically the same stuff. Unsurprising, really.

Can you share your study/findings? It'll help me and others who are searching for the same.

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

#264

Post by chiefalchemist »

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #242
chiefalchemist wrote: post #210

Correct me if I'm wrong but being overweight or obese is an endocrine disruptor. Such conditions exist in what ~50%+ of USA adults. Worse there are children growing up who are effectively unhealthy from age 5 forward. Add in other disruptors (e.g., chemicals) and naturally there are going to be problems; problems despite the narrative, are not due to the healthcare system.

It wouldn’t surprise me if we discover that the exogenous disrupters are causing the high obesity rate.

Causing? Maybe. Contributing to? Probably. Toss is compromised gut bacteria (due to other environmental factors) and it all adds up.

That said, drinking soda as if it's water, regularly consuming junk "food", as well as going weeks without breaking a sweat is a great foundation to build such a crisis of convergence on.

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

#265

Post by cblconfederate »

yakshemash wrote: post #142
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

1. The per capita environmental footprint is at least an order of magnitude, if not closer to two, higher in the western world 2. The subtext of this point is so distasteful to me that I can't figure out how to engage with it. How do you measure the quality of a human?

I mean health-wise, as the article says. You measure it with objective measures. I m not sure why it s distasteful to you?

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

#266

Post by tzone »

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…

Weight loss and proper exercise will probably deliver 99% of the improvements for 99% of the people. Stressing about heat, radiation, micro plastics, or other random stuff seems like extra stress for not that much benefit.

Most people in Western world are either out of shape, or straight up obese. It makes sense that, that will have huge negative effects on fertility.

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

#267

Post by cblconfederate »

4gotunameagain wrote: post #222
arrayjumper wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 assumed that this characterization in this context meant "less capable to protect Earth/environment/humanity", which is not too controversial given the inverse correlation between average education level and birthrates

No , i mean lower sperm/egg quality. Why are people quick to jump to extreme conclusions here?

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

#268

Post by formerly_proven »

sep_field wrote: post #239
Lammy wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There are better options.

https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/710/124/9ce...

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

#269

Post by silexia »

loa_in_ wrote: post #180
XiJInPaddington wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because its the same thing as a person setting your house on fire then advising you not to breathe in the smoke. Advice like telling people we are drowning in plastic because we don't recycle, telling people with no access to public transportation to minimize the use of cars, telling people with no access to healthcare to take care of their bodies, telling people that grew up in a glorified prison they call public sc…

Who is "they"?

It is "we". Almost all people I know will make selfish decisions that harm others for their own advantage. It seems to be simply human nature.

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

#270

Post by FieryTransition »

gspr wrote: post #238
FieryTransition wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Probably has, even though there's still a lot of people who smoke. Think it will be a while before it really can be considered a more rare occurrence/habit.

Considering how many people still do it, it could be considered as part of our culture.

Otherwise i don't know any sources of radiation. Besides some places where the atmosphere is getting thin, and getting skin cancer is very normal, like Australia.

Post reply on HN