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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

#831
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…

Just a small note: I noticed that I read your disclaimer that it's not in ranked order, and then went on curious to see what is the #1 cause, and had to remind myself that no it's not ranked. It might help stupid readers like me to use dashes or similar for lists when the order isn't particular, rather than numbering the items!

Re: Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought

#833
post #8

I had a test recently and I have 0% "normal" sperms, when 4%-14% is the normal range. Pretty radical. The doctor said to take vitamins, to get testosterone to normal level, and to excercise. In other words not much to do

Can they still fertilize the egg? What % of people came from abnormal sperm?

Re: Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought

#834
post #523

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Then it seems that sexual selection selects for weaker sperm?

That sounds like a contradiction

Re: Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought

#835
post #793
post #769

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just use glass. I never understood plastic containers. Basically just use shit that existed 50 years ago for food. Iron pans, store in glass, butter, lard. If you spill stuff on a couch just live with it. Buy leather. Too many things are made because people are lazy. If you have kids don't have nice stuff, it's very easy.

Glass is expensive to make (and recycle!), heavy, physically larger (since your container is, now, say, 0.250" thick instead of 0.025"), and much more likely to break during shipping, and presents an injury risk when broken.

Doesn't disrupt your hormones though. I'll take it.

Re: Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought

#836
post #352

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.

> We need to stop letting for-profit companies gamble with the health and longevity of the species in the interest of profits.

We might want to prevent them from owning our candidates, legislators and judges first.

Re: Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought

#837
post #793
post #769

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just use glass. I never understood plastic containers. Basically just use shit that existed 50 years ago for food. Iron pans, store in glass, butter, lard. If you spill stuff on a couch just live with it. Buy leather. Too many things are made because people are lazy. If you have kids don't have nice stuff, it's very easy.

Glass is expensive to make (and recycle!), heavy, physically larger (since your container is, now, say, 0.250" thick instead of 0.025"), and much more likely to break during shipping, and presents an injury risk when broken.

Part of the problem is that our supply chain is so global now. Maybe stuff shouldn't be shipped around so much and sourced/distributed locally.

Re: Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought

#838
post #267
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…

> and my wife was 38 at the time of conception. This sounds obvious, but apparently isn’t to a lot of younger people. 38 is considered quite old to start having children (yes it happens, but it’s called a “geriatric pregnancy” for a reason), and I’m sure it contributed to the difficulties conceiving. A lot of young folks have been convinced that child birth can be put off more or less indefinitely while you pursue a…

I'm not sure why you're being downvoted for this, perhaps it's an uncomfortable truth.

Re: Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought

#839

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

There is no real difference between eating food to which refined sugar has been added and eating sweet fruits. The sugar is not bound to anything and it is released in the fruit juice when the fruit is chewed, so it is not digested more slowly than when eating a sweetened cake with the same proportion of sugar (but the cakes are frequently made much sweeter than the fresh fruits). The great danger that has been creat…

> There is no real difference between eating food to which refined sugar has been added and eating sweet fruits.

Yeah, I've heard people say this, but I can tell a big difference between people who eat a lot of fruit and people who eat a lot of processed sugar.

It's right up there with saying eating an avocado is going to make you fat because of all the calories it has so you should eat a hamburger with half the calories instead.

Re: Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought

#840

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah yes, that study of 99 (predominantly overweight) men from an infertility clinic that definitely shows soy affects sperm count. As far as I'm aware the evidence just isn't there with respect to soy and cherry picking the single study that shows some potential link is just helping fuel a dietary myth, would be my view.

Perhaps the correlation is the other way around. Men with less testosterone (and therefore a lower sperm count) consume more products with soy, which is common in a vegan diet. Not saying this is the case, just pointing out where this could be coming from.

What about having low testosterone would make someone eat more products with soy?
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