Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought

nationalgeographic.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

891–900 of 1001 posts

Re: Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought

#891

Post by janef0421 »

faximile wrote: post #890
janef0421 wrote: post #877

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might be the case that endocrine disruptors may be increasing the likelihood a person is trans, but what you are proposing is almost certainly incorrect and would not work. Using sex-aligned hormones to cause a person to become cisgender is sometimes tried and does not appear to be effective, and I am not aware of any evidence that transgender people's pre-transition hormone levels are substantially lower than the…

> Also, this theory would suggest that eunuchs, self-identified men who voluntarily undergo gonad removal, would generally come to identify as women, but this is not the case; Similarly for men who have their testosterone suppressed as part of cancer treatment. Could that be explained by the unfortunate lack of trans acceptance?

Maybe, but I find that unlikely, particularly for eunuchs; Being a Eunuch is arguably more socially stigmatised than being a transsexual.

Re: Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought

#892

Post by faximile »

Conscat wrote: post #660
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'm not sure you have any credibility considering point 9.

They cited a study. If you disagree, please raise the bar, and either challenge the study, or cite something compelling.

Re: Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought

#893

Post by TexanFeller »

janef0421 wrote: post #877
TexanFeller wrote: post #855

One thing that I'm genuinely curious about that I've never heard addressed is whether the large increase of people identifying as trans(trans women in particular) could be related to the same factors that are causing lowered sperm counts and testosterone in men. There are massive amounts of compounds in our environment that are endocrine disrupters or mimic sex hormones like estrogen. Like maybe many persons assumed…

It might be the case that endocrine disruptors may be increasing the likelihood a person is trans, but what you are proposing is almost certainly incorrect and would not work. Using sex-aligned hormones to cause a person to become cisgender is sometimes tried and does not appear to be effective, and I am not aware of any evidence that transgender people's pre-transition hormone levels are substantially lower than the…

> Also, this theory would suggest that eunuchs, self-identified men who voluntarily undergo gonad removal, would generally come to identify as women, but this is not the case

Not necessarily, there are other possibilities, for example the mechanism might not be lack of male hormones, but elevated female hormones, or environmental contaminant analogs thereof.

Re: Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought

#894

Post by faximile »

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…

This might help me cut down my Coke Zero consumption. Thanks!

Can you suggest any reputable sources for keeping up to date with these best practices, from a consumer PoV?

Re: Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought

#895

Post by mikodin »

grammers wrote: post #752
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…

This more or less reads like any health instruction (except for the soy products). Would you have a quantity as to how one can change plastic intake by following these recommendations? How strict does one need to be? - I mean basically everything you buy is wrapped in plastic...

This isn't based on anything except for intuition, take it or leave it :).

Like most things - eliminating the highest points of contact likely would suffice.

Daily habits are the ones that matter.

Are you drinking from a plastic water bottle everyday? Is your water filter plastic? Are you drinking coffee from a keurig or similar? Are you storing food in plastic containers? Are you heating food in plastic containers? Are you using plastic utencils? Are you using plastic lined pans? Are you buying food wrapped in plastic?

Etc etc.

It's a good starting place...then get your sperm tested, it's not prohibitively expensive.

Re: Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought

#896

Post by maxsilver »

TexanFeller wrote: post #855

One thing that I'm genuinely curious about that I've never heard addressed is whether the large increase of people identifying as trans(trans women in particular) could be related to the same factors that are causing lowered sperm counts and testosterone in men. There are massive amounts of compounds in our environment that are endocrine disrupters or mimic sex hormones like estrogen. Like maybe many persons assumed…

> the large increase of people identifying as trans(trans women in particular)

Well, that's not quite accurate. (a) there isn't a large increase of trans people, historically speaking, just folks being more open and honest about their status recently, since it's become marginally less punished in a few specific places, than it has been prior, and (b) in recent years, trans men or transmasc folks are the largest group of those new influx, not trans women.

> There are massive amounts of compounds in our environment that are endocrine disrupters or mimic sex hormones like estrogen

If people were getting estrogen in the environment that they didn't want in any amount meaningful enough to effect them, you'd wouldn't expect to see more trans women (trans women, generally speaking, are usually deficient in estrogen), you'd expect to see more dysphoric men. You'd expect to see a sharp increase in cis men presenting with ED and gynecomastia and such. (Which, to be fair, is a thing we're seeing. But so far, appears to be mainly linked to increasing obesity rates)

> Maybe they would even benefit more from hormone treatments in the opposite direction than the "gender affirming" treatments.

This is barbaric if you think about it for more than 5 seconds. So barbaric in fact, that it's been outlawed in many nations -- see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conversion_therapy for more info

Re: Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought

#897

Post by TexanFeller »

janef0421 wrote: post #877
TexanFeller wrote: post #855

One thing that I'm genuinely curious about that I've never heard addressed is whether the large increase of people identifying as trans(trans women in particular) could be related to the same factors that are causing lowered sperm counts and testosterone in men. There are massive amounts of compounds in our environment that are endocrine disrupters or mimic sex hormones like estrogen. Like maybe many persons assumed…

It might be the case that endocrine disruptors may be increasing the likelihood a person is trans, but what you are proposing is almost certainly incorrect and would not work. Using sex-aligned hormones to cause a person to become cisgender is sometimes tried and does not appear to be effective, and I am not aware of any evidence that transgender people's pre-transition hormone levels are substantially lower than the…

How well documented is this, like when this has been tried has it been done as part of a formal medical study? What I'm really hoping is someone can say something like "here's the randomized controlled trial comparing treatments".

Re: Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought

#898

Post by lisper »

Dig1t wrote: post #881
lisper wrote: post #876

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Humans are awesome, Some humans are awesome. Other humans not so much. > intelligence is awesome. It is indeed, but intelligence is pretty unevenly distributed among humans. > More humans means more amazing things. It also means more stress on the planet's ecosystems. There are awesome things on earth besides humans, and one of the problems with humans is that too few of us seem to understand this. > we have the ab…

There's so much to unpack here, I'd love to have a longer form discussion in a place where we won't run out of thread depth, but I can't dig into all of the points in this format. This all gets very philosophical, but seriously, optimism is much better than pessimism here. > There are awesome things on earth besides humans Like what? Nature is cool, we shouldn't destroy it, but nothing else is truly sentient on this…

> I'd love to have a longer form discussion in a place where we won't run out of thread depth

You could leave a comment on my blog. Or write a guest post. Here are some possible attachment points:

http://blog.rongarret.info/2022/11/ron-descends-from-mountai...

https://blog.rongarret.info/2013/06/on-morality-of-kitten-to...

Or if none of those are suitable I could write up something new but that will take a few days.

> I like to think that humans and intelligence will make an incredibly cool, adventure-filled future for the universe

I like to think that too. But the evidence is strongly against it.

Re: Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought

#899

Post by TylerE »

superdisk wrote: post #835
TylerE wrote: post #793

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

How do you know? I guarantee you that glass gets washed at least once before it gets to you.

Re: Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought

#900

Post by janalsncm »

tjpnz wrote: post #885
zug_zug wrote: post #151

So 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…

How can this be fixed given the vested interests involved?

Maybe it can be balanced by the vested interests of the rest of us in not being poisoned.
Post reply on HN