On the one hand we have an overpopulation problem, on the other we have a lowered fertility problem? What’s the issue?
Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought
781–790 of 1001 posts
Re: Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought
#782On the one hand we have an overpopulation problem, on the other we have a lowered fertility problem? What’s the issue?
Well, for one, we don't have an overpopulation problem.
Re: Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought
#783My 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…
We were looking down the barrel of IVF after everything else didn't work but all sperm and eggs etc looked normal. Turns out that my wife had an immune response (so-called "natural killer cells") that was preventing successful pregnancy.
Drugs for that were simple and very mild (and cheap!) and within 2 months we were pregnant for the first child. For the second child it was just 1 month! This was all naturally conceived after a very long period of nothing happening.
IVF seemed very invasive with potentially low success rates but conversely high risk of twins etc if it did work. I'd recommend getting the immunology investigated if people are suggesting IVF for you - for us it was utterly straight forward and simple once the diagnosis was made and the drugs prescribed. Google for Dr Shehata in the UK.
Re: Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought
#784"Five years ago, a study describing a precipitous decline in sperm counts sparked extreme concerns that humanity was on the path to extinction." Extinction, seriously? Why is it necessary to be so hyperbolic with writing these days. Humanity has increased 8x in the last 200 years and we have plenty of artificial means to have children. I seriously doubt low sperm count is going to lead to our extinction.
Look at the second derivative.
Peak population is likely imminent.
Re: Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought
#785Earlier quoted context omitted.
At the same time, the world health organisation estimates 95% of people are inactive. I think a lack of activity is the biggest cause of the obesity crisis. Especially these days where even older generations who weren't raised in this modern environment are often chronically online nonetheless. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/06/02/medic...
Sure, but what I think I'm ultimately trying to say is: that problem probably isn't getting solved anytime soon, given what we've turned the world into with technology. We can control sugar in the food supply, though. It would do quite a bit if we'd just stop shoving it where it doesn't belong.
Even if you control sugar it isn't going to offer nearly the same benefits to people as being active, especially late in life.
Re: Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought
#786Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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?
Or leather water bottles as well.
Do you know of any that don't have a liner of some sort? I'd be interested in trying one but wouldn't know where to get one.
Re: Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought
#787So this trend has been going on for a while now, I looked a bit into it about 5 years ago here's what I found: - Tons of popular and legal products/chemicals are "endocrine disruptors"[1] (fancy term for mess with hormones). - The FDA/EPA doesn't deny that, they don't themselves even really require tests for long-term health effects in humans (too difficult). Instead they give animals a 1000x+ dose and look for immed…
As someone who is too lazy to do their own research on this topic....did you happen to find which products generally contain the most endocrine disruptors?
My partner and I recently embarked on a journey to replace as many products in our lives that contain endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDC's) as we could. It's _really_ hard.
You have to carefully read product labels, 99.9% of products don't contain any info about EDC's, you have to specially seek out ones that are labeled as phthalate-free, BPA-free, etc.
Biggest offenders are in the kitchen and bathroom. Shampoo, conditioner, deodorant, perfume, are big offenders. There are special versions of these products you can find but they don't usually work as well. Most things that are scented have phthalates. Pretty much any food that comes in a flexible plastic container, most dairy and eggs have it as well (dairy because of the flexible plastic tubing used when pumping milk).
One example of a source for milk: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23138015/
Re: Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought
#788Earlier quoted context omitted.
All plastics are endocrine disruptors [a], though the an easy filter is softer = worse. If anything food related is in contact with plastic there will be plastic in the food. The pH and temperature of the food have a big impact on plastic leaching. And sperm quality mostly affect fertility. The egg and the body if the woman is incredibly effective at selecting quality sperm and rejecting bad sperm. There are multiple…
Plastic is generally defined by its mechanical and thermal properties and a dominance of polymers. There’s are lots and lots of different chemicals used as plastics today and they have wildly different chemical properties. It seems incredible to state that “all plastics” are endocrine disruptors. Many plastics are essentially chemically inert in a biological sense. In some ways DNA itself can be seen as a plastic bei…
> In some ways DNA itself can be seen as a plastic being a biopolymer if it were handled properly and in enough quantity.
To be fair, DNA absolutely disrupts all kinds of biological processes - that's why viruses do anything, for example. And random nonsense DNA that you'd see if someone was using it as a plastic would probably uncover new and exciting failure modes that existing biological systems haven't had to deal with before because nothing natural produces pure DNA in absurd enough quantities to make plastic bottles out of.
Re: Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought
#789Years ago, I published a paper suggesting that humans have genomic evidence of strong selection pressure on some sex hormone pathways. So, I am quite curious about whether sperm counts are plummeting solely because of environmental changes (e.g., human created hormone influencing toxins, including "the pill") or also because natural selection in humans has drastically changed with the advent of modern society. In spe…
Wasn't Sexual selection even more weird throughout recorded history? Marriage concerns basically was the opposite of SS , where economics and religion trumped natural selection, particularly in the western world we re talking about. Even today millions of people are marrying contrary to selection gradients (arranged marriages, marrying relatives, too young/old , excluding other religions etc etc.). Do these people ha…
For the vast majority of recorded history people married someone from their village of 200 people or from a nearby village a few miles away. It doesn't matter how weird our mating rituals are when there's not much variability to begin with.
Modern urban cities provide access to a much more diverse gene pool which allows individuals to select across a much wider range of characteristics.
Re: Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought
#790Surely motility is more of a worry than count ???.