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Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought

nationalgeographic.com

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Re: Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought

#501
post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fertility isn't the only consideration with having children when you're old. Skin elasticity and athleticism decreases with age, and that translates into worse tearing, and more difficult births, longer recovery, and more trouble keeping up with a baby after all that. Then, on top of all that, your parents are entering their sunset years rather where you have to help them rather than having grandparents young enough…

Can you imagine having two generations of kids at 20 years old? ‘Grandma’ will be 40 when she has her first grandkid.

This has probably been the default situation for most of history I'd think.

Great-grandma would 60, and hell, with some luck, great-great-grandma might have been kicking around still at 80!

Re: Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought

#502
post #43

The lack of federally funded research on this topic is astounding. It's been like this for a long time, but ignored. Even more notably has been the lack of curiosity from the media and academia. They simply shrug and move on, as if the root cause of this isn't something we should look into as potentially causing other problems that are even worse. Edit: The downvotes without any comment refuting this highlight the is…

Its the same with obesity, which has been sharply increasing in much of the world since the 1970s, but pretty much all the conventional explanations (increased availability, excess sugar, excess carbs, excess fat, decreased physical activity, etc.) don't seem to stand up to scrutiny. Hypothesis: the cause in both cases is likely industrial contaminants considered essential to the running of modern civilization, so no…

Doesn't the existence of anorexia (which appears to be socially transmissible) and the fact that people who take up hobbies like bodybuilding are able to manage their fat levels well suggest that environmental contaminants aren't the whole story? The staple bodybuilding foods are rice and chicken breast. That's about as industrialized as you can get.

If there were people getting fat eating broccoli, potatoes, chicken, and salad I would buy the contamination argument, but when you look at what people who have trouble managing their weight actually eat it is never simple foods like that.

Re: Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought

#503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have a societal problem when the rational individual choice (to provide your children the best head start) is to wait until your fertility declines to have children.

While true, the desire to push everyone into heavy productivity mode from ages 18-55 are a societal problem, there is also a financial (and educational) problem where solutions to combat the aging fertility problem are often locked behind procedures that cost more than a year's salary for majority of people. An example of this is that freezing your eggs costs upwards of $30k, and is still viewed as something only ver…

>An example of this is that freezing your eggs costs upwards of $30k, and is still viewed as something only very select late 30's successful women do.

Isn't that also very unreliable ? When we went to IVF clinic they told us that freezing the eggs has much lower chance of them being usable compared to fertilized eggs.

Re: Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought

#504
post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that is how IVF works, you can't induce an adult female to produce eggs in any medically approved way. Apparently mammals are born with a finite number of eggs that just get used up as they get older.

Hormones are injected into the egg-having partner to induce a mass release of eggs. Ova are not created in this process.

No post body was provided.

Re: Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought

#505
post #478

I did my Master Degree in Organic Chemistry where we tried to develop a male contraceptive pill. I spend a lot of time studying sperm so here is a short list of thing to avoid regarding sperm quality (not ranked): 1. Eating and drinking from plastics (This includes aluminum cans which are plastic lined) [a] 2. Heating food in ANY type of plastic [a] 3. Caffein intake [b] 4. Sugar intake [c] 5. NOT exercising regularl…

I think I'm missing something. On the Results in study [b], they say

> Semen parameters did not seem affected by caffeine intake, at least caffeine from coffee, tea and cocoa drinks, in most studies. Conversely, other contributions suggested a negative effect of cola-containing beverages and caffeine-containing soft drinks on semen volume, count and concentration.

If tea and coffee don't cause an effect, but cola and soft drinks do, doesn't that imply it's sugar, not caffeine?

Re: Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought

#506

The thesis of the book 'Countdown' is that this is largely due to widespread plastic and other endocrine disrupting chemicals. I believe this is one of the most important risks to humanity, after climate change, and global war. So far, I've taken some lifestyle changes to combat this: 1) Threw out all of my teflon cooking pans 2) Refuse to consume food in heated plastics 3) Throw out teabags (they have plastics). Use…

Better check your plumbing because I hate to say it, PEX is everywhere and it's yet to be shown if there are long term effects on having plastic plumbing everywhere. My kitchen water tastes like plastic all the time.

PEX is fine. Water that sat in a PEX pipe is chemically indistinguishable from water held in a test tube, unlike what happens with water in PVC piping. Another indicator of fine-ness is that PE and PP tubing is used extensively in chemical process plants where high purity is required.

Re: Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought

#507

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get reliably downvoted for suggesting this, but we need vastly better labelling across the board. We give companies a lot of leeway when it comes to selling things to put in and on our bodies without us, owners of said bodies, having any way of finding out what the hell is in their products, or where they came from, or how they were processed. It absolutely baffles me how everyone doesn't want considerably more inf…

"Ignorance is bliss" is safe, zero-effort, and anxiety-free - until it isn't. And when it isn't - both the "not just a river in Egypt" and "blame some handy & culturally appropriate boogeyman" strategies are popular and low-effort. And usually enjoy widespread social support.

Ahh....low effort sound bite boogyman legislation. Reminds me of Florida.

Re: Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought

#508
post #156

My wife and I have a beautiful daughter about to turn 2. But she wouldn't have existed if it weren't for IVF (in vitro fertilization). Had to stab her stomach with needles for a while to make hormones to mass produce eggs and then they took my sperm to put into her eggs and see which ones took. Five viable pairings happened. Three were put into her and out came the one kid. Other two are in cryo for future use, and h…

No post body was provided.

Re: Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought

#509
post #156

My wife and I have a beautiful daughter about to turn 2. But she wouldn't have existed if it weren't for IVF (in vitro fertilization). Had to stab her stomach with needles for a while to make hormones to mass produce eggs and then they took my sperm to put into her eggs and see which ones took. Five viable pairings happened. Three were put into her and out came the one kid. Other two are in cryo for future use, and h…

You may not like to hear this but women having a kid past 30 introduces a lot of potential problems and deficiencies in the child.

That's a myth that the medical establishment wants to sell you. Women are fine and have children with no problem, long past that artificial "deadline".

https://youtu.be/g9ryP0UyO5U

Re: Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought

#510
post #478

I did my Master Degree in Organic Chemistry where we tried to develop a male contraceptive pill. I spend a lot of time studying sperm so here is a short list of thing to avoid regarding sperm quality (not ranked): 1. Eating and drinking from plastics (This includes aluminum cans which are plastic lined) [a] 2. Heating food in ANY type of plastic [a] 3. Caffein intake [b] 4. Sugar intake [c] 5. NOT exercising regularl…

I might as well stop using condoms.
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