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

381–390 of 640 posts

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

#381

Post by airhead969 »

I went to glass containers for food storage and transfer food out of plastic packaging as soon as possible.

Precocious puberty: I had a mental health hit (near collapse) from something that happened in my mid 20's. I started dating the stepdaughter of a neighbor (upper-middle class area) who said she was 19, and she definitely seemed it by being smart, chill, age-mature, sensible, and fully-developed (Tanner V). Lo and behold: she was not 17, 16, or 15, but 12. 12! WTH? I felt awful, ashamed, and like a perv monster. Thankfully, nothing illegal progressed but it was way too close and that would've been the end of my life. The worst part was I really liked, respected, got along with, and was attracted to her. Why, human condition, why? Torture. Sigh.

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

#382

Post by galangalalgol »

klmadfejno wrote: post #274
galangalalgol wrote: post #253

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.

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 t…

Also we traded cocaine and cigarettes for pot and booze (alcohol usage is much higher than the 80s).

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

#383

Post by selimthegrim »

DC1350 wrote: post #348
NelsonMinar wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the globohomo agenda is turning all the cute young men gay. Not you, from your words I can tell you're ugly.

This comment is not appropriate for HN.

It was a tongue-in-cheek response to the parent (you)

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

#384

Post by forgotmypw17 »

wing-_-nuts wrote: post #364
forgotmypw17 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>Do your research and act on it yourself. Or, we could acknowledge that most of the general public doesn't have the education necessary, and have the government regulate on our behalf. You know... like they're elected to do. Average Joe truck driver or Jane LPN shouldn't have to have an indepth knowledge of endocrinology just to be safe from the greed and callousness of polluting corporations.

> Or, we could acknowledge that most of the general public doesn't have the education necessary, and have the government regulate on our behalf. You know... like they're elected to do.

Hmm... Are you talking about the regulators who come from the same industry which produces the pollutants and are heavily lobbied by that industry?

> Average Joe truck driver or Jane LPN shouldn't have to have an indepth knowledge of endocrinology just to be safe from the greed and callousness of polluting corporations.

While I agree with your "shouldn't have to", there is no reason that they cannot read the same research papers and understand them enough to come to their own conclusions.

We are blessed with being able to access that information, and I think it is foolish to not take advantage of that privilege.

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

#385

Post by jeffreyrogers »

Nilef wrote: post #129
jonplackett wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 whats…

Would love to hear more about the mind of brands/foods you ate with no sugar. I’ve attempted this before and it’s extremely hard to find products with 0 sugar! Guessing you avoided the local Tesco?

Rice, meat, potatoes, eggs.

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

#386

Post by leetcrew »

fuzzer37 wrote: post #317
Razengan wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's so wrong with never having children?

This is what I keep getting caught up on. I, for one, don't mind that my sperm count may be lower than my ancestors, or that my partners egg quality may be lower. I don't ever want to have children, so this honestly seems like a good thing to me. I know this isn't true for everyone (I'd say the majority of people _do_ want to reproduce), but for me personally, this kind of thing seems positive to indifferent at best.

this situation seems like an unhappy midpoint though. the chance of conception is still uncomfortably high for people who don't want children, while frustratingly low for those who do.

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

#387

Post by giantg2 »

somehnguy wrote: post #368
giantg2 wrote: post #225

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…

I've read this all over the internet but my parents had a bird live very well past the expected bird lifespan and modified nothing about their normal habits (using teflon pans, cleaning the oven, etc) the entire time. The bird's cage was like 15 feet from the oven. Just a single anecdotal data point but I think the risk is extremely overblown.

Interesting.

I see the risk as being in the level where I choose not to use teflon pans, but not extreme enough to ban it or force others to follow my choices. I think the environmental impact from the manufacturers is a bigger concern that should be monitored more closely. I think they have a Netflix documentary about one place in WV. Of course the company switched to a new (largely untested) chemical for new coatings. Just a shell game to stay in compliance or public favor, like with BPA vs BPS.

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

#388

Post by drpgq »

jonplackett wrote: post #310
tzone wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Absolutely agree that being generally healthy will make a difference. But what if you aren’t over weight and already fairly healthy, like I was? Then you have to look at other things too.

If you had to say what was the best intervention?

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

#389

Post by tuckerpo »

Shoddy endogenous androgen production in men is likely a function of excess adipose tissue causing higher rates of aromatization of T to estrogen

Being overweight or obese makes it more difficult to lose weight and put on muscle, a feedback loop

Clean diet and regular exercise goes a very long way, but nutrient deficient soil is making micro-nutrient deficiencies more difficult to resolve. Anecdotally, eating a whole foods diet consistent of high quality protein usually sourced from local farms (I'm in rural upstate NY), I still find myself needing to supplement magnesium, zinc, D3 and K2.

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

#390

Post by FieryTransition »

gspr wrote: post #292
FieryTransition wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Besides some places where the atmosphere is getting thin, and getting skin cancer is very normal, like Australia. I thought the ozone situation had been getting a lot better since the 90s?

It is getting better, but it won't really recover until 2050 to 2060's AFAIK. That said, there are other gasses which might still be bad to let into the atmosphere, so we still don't understand it a 100% There's also the ozone hole, which partly affects Australia [0], but mostly Antarctica. I think it is really interesting, that about 2/3 of people in Australia will get skin cancer at some point, and I've wondered whether it's due to the increased exposure to, what is essentially radiation, or just the mass migration of people who were originally not native to the region. Thus they don't handle the sun as well, as say, Aboriginals.

[0] https://www.villageinframe.com/ozone-layer-hole-in-australia...

Post reply on HN