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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

#431

Post by mediaman »

Sunspark wrote: post #396
Frost1x wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I tend to agree with you WRT to diet and exercise, I think this is a secondary issue to what's being described here, similar to how I think modern science and technology has skewed the natural selection process with a bias that may select for undesirable attributes. Some of this bias may be for good intentions (allowing less fertile couples to conceive) while some may have questionable outcomes (selection based…

I often wonder if it's something like car tire dust. All those vehicles eroding away the tire material which then goes into the air, soil and water. It goes somewhere.

Exactly that was found to be responsible for mass killings of salmon in the Puget Sound, and the consequent deaths of orcas and other wildlife.

A rubberizer additive put in tires was getting atomized and then washed off into the streams. It makes salmon swim in circles until they die.

Does it do anything to people? We don't know.

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

#432

Post by giantg2 »

forgotmypw17 wrote: post #395
giantg2 wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 coatin…

I agree that for the average Joe, it is a waste of effort to try to get bans enacted. That time is much better spent doing research (or contracting a trusted qualified person to do so) and then enacting changes in the space they personally have agency over.

I'm just saying that I don't think it's right people to tell other what to do unless it has some direct and well demonstrated impact to the rights of another. As long as the manufacturers are correctly controlling the waste, then I don't see why banning it would make sense. Sort if like some people choose to smoke cigarettes- that's their choice.

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

#433

Post by flerchin »

calvinmorrison wrote: post #402
Frost1x wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I tend to agree with you WRT to diet and exercise, I think this is a secondary issue to what's being described here, similar to how I think modern science and technology has skewed the natural selection process with a bias that may select for undesirable attributes. Some of this bias may be for good intentions (allowing less fertile couples to conceive) while some may have questionable outcomes (selection based…

"Some of this bias may be for good intentions (allowing less fertile couples to conceive) while some may have questionable outcomes (selection based purely on socioeconomic status)." First let's not anthropomorphize nature, or natural selection. But secondly, in 1st world countries, the more money you make, the less likely you are to have kids! We've done a terrible job at incentivizing couples to have kids since wom…

I feel like a wealthier and wealthier population, slowly shrinking, might be the sustainable future we need. Yes there will be challenges, but geometric, or even linear, population growth of the human species is not sustainable.

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

#434

Post by abledon »

gruez wrote: post #295
forgotmypw17 wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on random website I found googling, it starts to break down and release PFOA around 300F, which is easy to achieve if the pan is not filled with water.

Do you have your units mixed up? Wikipedia seems to have a different range: >While PTFE is stable and nontoxic at lower temperatures, it begins to deteriorate after the temperature of cookware reaches about 260 °C (500 °F), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polytetrafluoroethylene

who the heck is getting their pans to 260C? ? ? Frying eggs... it only needs to get so hot?

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

#435

Post by acdha »

tzone wrote: post #266
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.

> Weight loss and proper exercise will probably deliver 99% of the improvements for 99% of the people.

In addition to be factually incorrect, consider how what you said sounds to the many people who are healthy, active but are having problems with something they thought would be easy. This is very stressful for many people, seeming especially cruel after years of worrying about accidental pregnancy, and the medical treatments are a figurative (and often literal) pain in the ass. Unqualified strangers taking the opportunity to offer judgmental “advice” is not something anyone wants even in general, and it’s certainly not more appropriate in this situation.

We spent about 5 years on this (and have a great 3yo). If anyone reading this has questions, feel free to ask.

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

#437

Post by giantg2 »

gspr wrote: post #290
giantg2 wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

> > "Do you have some references?" > > Here's one of many if you google. https://natural-fertility-info.com/study-wi-fi-laptop-comput... A blog post by "Dalene Barton - Certified Herbalist, Birth Doula". Lol, you've got to be kidding me?! > 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. So…

"A blog post by "Dalene Barton - Certified Herbalist, Birth Doula". Lol, you've got to be kidding me?!"

I'm not citing the blog. The blog merely explains the results of the study. It is a peer reviewed study available through Elseiver.

"That no harm has been found. The same class of evidence you rely on when you eat a carrot and wonder whether it's poisonous or not."

Let's see your peer reviewed articles that prove it - that was the standard for evidence that you set in your comment.

"Glanced at it now. Please correct tme if I'm wrong, but is it really true that that they did a study with n=90 rats and used the occurrance of 2 cases of tumors in them, versus 0 in the control, as evidence???"

I gave you one example. Please do some research of your own instead of just trolling.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25738972/

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

#439

Post by pb7 »

fogihujy wrote: post #412
zug_zug wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As somebody with a friend who has gender stuff going on, I can tell you the friend just wants an honest answer out of science and couldn't care less about indirect implications.

It doesn't affect me at all either, but I'd still be cautious before making any claims hinting that being trans is a medical condition -- if it does indeed turn out to be related, then it could turn a lot of people's lives upside down.

> being trans is a medical condition

Curious, what else is it if not that? Eczema is also a medical condition too but we don't shame people for having it. Medical conditions shouldn't carry the implication that you're a broken person as a result of it.

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

#440

Post by gruez »

forgotmypw17 wrote: post #373
gruez wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At normal cooking temperatures, PTFE-coated cookware releases various gases and chemicals that present mild to severe toxicity. I don't think it means what you think it means. Reading further into the paper, it says >At normal use conditions [ Which seems absolutely tiny. If spread out the emissions across the hour (because the 4.75 ng figure was cumulative emissions), the exposure to the cook would be in the parts…

I guess it's all relative and a matter of opinion... 4.75 nanograms may not seem like a lot, but when you consider that, at 414.07g/mol it is 6,908,293,060,000 parts of the stuff, it seems like quite a bit to me. And that's in just one cooking session. Please correct me if I'm wrong, it's been a while since my chemistry class. The EPA drinking water standards, the ones watered down by industry influence, are measured…

>4.75 nanograms may not seem like a lot, but when you consider that, at 414.07g/mol it is 6,908,293,060,000 parts of the stuff, it seems like quite a bit to me.

This doesn't prove anything part from molecules being really small. What's more important at what doses do negative health effects materialize.

>And that's in just one cooking session.

I'm not sure about you but 1 hour is an usually long time to be using a frying pan. Unless you're cooking a huge slab of meat, letting anything sit in a 230C degree pan for an hour would result it being burnt/overcooked.

>The EPA drinking water standards, the ones watered down by industry influence, are measured in parts per trillion.

Looking through https://www.epa.gov/ground-water-and-drinking-water/national..., the only one that I can find that's near 1 part per trillion is dioxin, at 0.03 PPT. The rest are well above that. Furthermore, even 1 part per trillion is a high estimate for actual exposure. In addition to being spread out across an hour (3600 seconds), the emissions are also dispersed across the room and vented out. Finally, like I pointed out earlier, what maters more is the toxicity of the compound. Dioxins and PFCAs are both "bad", but it doesn't mean they're equally as toxic. The limit for mercury is orders of magnitude higher at 2 parts per billion.

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