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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

#561

Post by yamtaddle »

throw0101a wrote: post #531
Knufen wrote: 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…

> 1. Eating and drinking from plastics (This includes aluminum cans which are plastic lined) [a] So drinking containers should generally be ceramic, glass, or stainless steel?

I'd want to know that drinks aren't full of that stuff regardless of the end-user container material, before worrying about it. They're surely exposed to tons of plastics in the manufacturing process, including at times when various components are heated.

Even water supplies in a house will typically have been in contact with plastics—at the treatment plant, in the house for any modern house (they're pretty much all PEX now, since it's stupid-easy and fast to install, which means it's very cheap), in the hot water heater if they're any hot water mixed in (ever start with a hot tap for water you're gonna boil?), if you've got a filter system that's almost certainly full of plastic, and so on.

You'd also have to avoid canned goods of all kinds, not just bottled/canned drinks. Store-bought canned foods have plastic liners, which all but completely solved problems with canned-good spoilage that we used to have, but does mean ~all canned goods are sitting in plastic, not metal, effectively. Glass-canned might be better but are usually more expensive and there's still plastic on the inside of the lids (how much that matters, I do not know—I'd expect very little, but sometimes these things are surprising, for all I know those inside-the-lids bits use exceptionally awful plastic or something).

Re: Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought

#562

Post by concinds »

Knufen wrote: 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…

"Sugar" doesn' seem to include fruits, thankfully. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29266782/

Re: Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought

#563

Post by biohacker85 »

pcthrowaway wrote: post #380
lambdaba wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> alcohol, caffeine and meat one of these is definitely not like the others... An all-meat diet I would bet is the best to conceive, because it's the best for hormonal health, judging by the countless anecdotes (e.g. women regaining their cycles after many years) I'm seeing. Anyway, I just wanted to point that out, it's still shocking to me that people still believe that meat is detrimental to health.

Ahh, anecdotes about consuming meat, I can't think of anything more scientifically rigorous and less influenced by sentiment. My own anecdotes tell me that eating meat vastly decreases your fertility rate. Some anecdotes add that it's because of the animal hormones you consume, others state that it's because meat-eating is associated with other health conditions which interfere with conception (obesity, high choleste…

Meat has been a staple of the human diet since recorded history. Its basically a science experiment spanning millenia with favorable results for meat-eating--no anecdotes necessary.

Re: Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought

#564

Post by icoder »

agentwiggles wrote: post #497
Aeolun wrote: post #436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> corporate cultures that, in my experience, don't really know what to do with young parents What do they not know? I’ve been mostly treated fairly (not exactly a young parent though).

I'll share an experience. My (now) wife and I got pregnant in our senior year of college. That summer I had the good fortune to land my first software dev internship. At the end of the summer, I was to be given an offer letter to come on as a full time employee after I finished school. I asked in that meeting if I could just continue to work and was told "uh yeah, that's fine I guess". Major victory for me at the tim…

Please be aware that this highly depends on the country!

Re: Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought

#565

Post by siglesias »

Knufen wrote: 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 cannot recommend highly enough having a set of glass bottles[1] at home. Fill them at the tap (or wherever), refrigerate them, take them to the gym, in the car, serve to guests. Point is to have many, keep a rotation going. Has greatly reduced reliance on plastic.

1) https://amzn.to/3H2YadV

Re: Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought

#566

Post by themagician »

Whenever I read about things like decreasing sperm counts or increases in cancer I always think of the same phrase, "Everything is chemicals." It just really doesn't surprise me knowing how little evaluation is done on chemicals and materials throughout the supply chain.

I believe the period from 1900 to around 2100 will be looked at as this horrible era where we filled our own ecosystem with an almost unimaginable amount of "toxic" chemicals.

Truth is, particularly the US, the only thing we really test consumer products for is lead and mercury. These are the two things we test basically everything for. Other than that it's pretty much don't ask don't tell (and don't test), unless there is a specific piece of legislation that forces such a test. It's starting to change. But the US model is basically, "Do whatever you want. We'll let liability shape policy." So you create a product, put it out and have it do unimaginable damage, then pay for the health and environmental damage you did, and then create legislation around what others should do going forward.

I get the economic reasons for this. But I think we went too far, too fast, and too hard.

Re: Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought

#567

Post by Dig1t »

njovin wrote: post #352
rootusrootus wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps we need to invest in more testing, and then work on a whitelist instead of blacklist approach.

I've heard on a few podcasts that this is how European countries do this. We need to stop letting for-profit companies gamble with the health and longevity of the species in the interest of profits.

You are right that this is a much better approach. The problem is Europe also has low sperm counts and are also being exposed to endocrine disruptors in the same way as the rest of the world. So whatever whitelist approach they are using does not seem to be saving them from this problem.

Re: Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought

#568

Post by Knufen »

aidenn0 wrote: post #558
Knufen wrote: 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…

> Funnily enough these goes for both genders So eating and drinking from plastics lowers sperm quality in women too?

No, but it does affect fertility, as well as various cancers. Breast cancer: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7286136/, cervical cancer: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4801991/ and fertility: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5479690/

Re: Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought

#569

Post by akiselev »

DevX101 wrote: post #351
UweSchmidt wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding tea bags, sometimes I see plastic tea bags which are crazy, as they must have a weak structure/large surface and the hot water surely washes out a lot of plastic. I am assuming the normal paper tea bags I get in Germany with a metal clip should be plastic free though, or am I missing something? Yes we are down to discussing tea bag brands now but as you are saying, it's an emergency :-(

What consumers think of as normal "paper" tea bags release 11.6 billion “microplastics” and 3.1 billion “nanoplastics” into each cup. It's not paper.

Since when did micro- and nanoplastics become an SI unit?

Where do I put my feet?

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