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Falling sperm counts, declining egg quality, and endocrine disruptors

nytimes.com

271–280 of 640 posts

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

#271
post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

"Do you have some references?"

Here's one of many if you google. https://natural-fertility-info.com/study-wi-fi-laptop-comput...

"Are you sure you're not mixing up heat and radiation here?"

I'm not. If you look at my other statements in my comment, you will see that distance plays an important part in RF exposure. Energy dissipates rapidly and is generally minimal beyond 6' when we are talking about sub-watt consumer devices.

"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."

You quoted me in the above and complained about speculation. You can see in the italics that I acknowledge that I don't know if the distant transmitters cause problems or not.

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

I've already linked one study. I'm not going to google everything for you. You can us PubMed too.

I'd also like to ask where your evidence is that it is harmless? Did you also miss the study that said specific brain cancer incidence is raised by holding a cell phone to your head? It seems your position that it's all harmless is just speculation.

https://www.consumerreports.org/cell-phones/what-the-cell-ph...

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

#272

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.

In the list of: "practical suggestions" in the article, they talk about literally everything except for weight-loss and getting in shape.

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

#273

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?

> How do you measure the quality of a human

Net worth obviously. Riffraff are mostly worthless creatures.

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

#274

This is the most important part of the essay: Uncertainty remains, research sometimes conflicts and biological pathways aren’t always clear. There are competing theories about whether the sperm count decline is real and what might cause it and about why girls appear to be reaching puberty earlier, and it’s sometimes unclear whether an increase in male genital abnormalities reflects actual rising numbers or just bette…

Obesity being a correlation might mean it is also a symptom. We already know from a couple studies that people with the same activity level and calorie intake are significantly more overweight than in the 80s. One leading hypothesis is endocrine disruptors.

Possible, but I would tend to bet its just a high sugar and sweetener diet more than anything. Obesity is not uniform at all. In pre covid days of seeing many people, I would rarely see anyone who is obese (northeast american), but that's because I'm in an upper middle class bubble. These days I'm pretty good about avoiding heating up plastics and what not. Growing up it wasn't on our radar at all. Point I'm trying to make is plastic exposure is pretty high for all populations, whereas diet varies tremendously by social class, and the composition of it has changed significantly since the 80s.

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

#275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obesity being a correlation might mean it is also a symptom. We already know from a couple studies that people with the same activity level and calorie intake are significantly more overweight than in the 80s. One leading hypothesis is endocrine disruptors.

I'd be very wary of any studies that ask people to identify "activity level."

That does seem the weak point. The body can conserve calories in many hard to observe ways.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S18714...

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

#276

Pick a random essential nutrient. For instance, take zinc. Human body needs it. It needs to be taken in. You need to ensure the right food items, or the right supplements, doesn't matter. Where does that source come from? plants? animals? imported? produced? What goes into that? What's the prevalent intake level in developed countries? developing countries? what should be the right intake level? where (which parts of…

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…

I'm currently in the process of reducing animal product intake. I'm going about it methodically to make it into an actual habit rather than a fad where I give up a month or two later.

What really got me to accept that maybe animal products might be detrimental is Dr. Gregor talking about the exogenous endotoxin theory. Dead bacteria in your food, no matter how or how long you cook it, will produce an inflammatory response. Animal fat may assist these endotoxins due to the structure of the gut wall.[0]

When it was put into these terms, it makes it way more apparent. The plan is to reduce consumption of animal products and when I do want to eat meat, get it from a high quality source with a lower endotoxin load.

[0]: https://nutritionfacts.org/video/dead-meat-bacteria-endotoxe...

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

#277
post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

At least you know what's in bottled water, the water supply and its contents can vary wildly. In some places they still use lead pipes iirc.

In many American locales, especially in areas with access to large clean aquifers, tap water will be cleaner than bottled water. Don't go assuming bottled is better. If you can afford to put a filter on your tap (this is expensive), I would on tap water being much cleaner.

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

#279
post #53

The planet is ridding itself of its disease, beautiful.

Sorry to disappoint you, but the population is still going to rise, since this is not a global phenomenon. The areas with the already highest birth rates are not significantly affected.

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

#280
post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Do you really think that people who own nonstick pans are only using them a low and medium settings as the article recommends? Or that most apartments have a vent hood for the stove? Something they don't mention is that the FDA also recommends throwing out nonstick pans made before 2013 (I think that was the year) because the older pans emit more fumes and at lower temperatures.

Sure, if you're extremely careful about using it, it's possible. That's why my previous comment wasn't absolute. But the majority of people I've known who use them seem to treat the pans poorly and cook with them at all temperatures. Many times they only own nonstick pans (who has space for multiple sets in an appartment?), and use them at all temperatures.

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