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Sperm Count Dropping in Western World

scientificamerican.com

161–170 of 300 posts

Re: Sperm Count Dropping in Western World

#161
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The linkage between consumption of these chemicals, and their exact nature of harm, is not well established- it's not "fairly conclusive" at all. What we have is a bunch of in vitro and in vivo studies, but not actual epidemiological evidence of the quality required to make rational policy decisions. If you believe otherwise, I'm happy to ready any high quality studies you can find. Pleaes don't just cherry pick a fe…

And remember 50% of published scientific studies can't be successfully reproduced! 100% confidence.

50% of studies can't be reproduced, and 90% are outright false (which makes you wonder about the percent that can be reproduced, but are false) :-)

Re: Sperm Count Dropping in Western World

#162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"be careful in doing your review." Says the lazy poster who just made a bunch of claims himself and didn't cite anything!

The burden of proof is on the one making unsupported claims, not on the one questioning the unsupported claims. (It's tedious to post supporting studies on every post, so there's nothing nefarious about claims being initially unsupported.) I do agree that the "be careful..." comment is perhaps open to being interpreted as snarky, though it's always hard to infer the intent in a forum such as this.

the reason I said "be careful" is that I'm a staff scientist who already has done his due diligence, and often, when I ask people to provide refuting studies, they just go on Google Scholar and return with papers whose titles match their pre-existing conclusion. If you try to do that in an academic setting, you'll be laughed out of the room (and nobody will trust what you say any more).

I'm just working to save time by making people who make outrageous claims do the work to produce supporting evidence. I'm really tired of people (especially non-scientists) citing articles they haven't read or aren't qualified to evaluate.

Re: Sperm Count Dropping in Western World

#163
post #147

My belief is that the primary cause is environmental chemicals, specifically Phthalates and BPA (and related chemicals). The science on this is fairly conclusive. We can show that these chemicals bind to estrogen receptors, that they're present in everyone's body, and that if you're acutely exposed to a higher dose, your testosterone goes down. In my opinion, these chemicals are having social and cultural effects bey…

Alright, so what should we do? Should we daily take DHEA/GABA/Zinc etc. to compensate effect of these chemicals? Eat only food we grow/kill ourselves? Move to mountains shielded from airborne pollution?

Ruthlessly eat healthy whole foods , limit junk media, daily muscle/tendon/bone strengthening exercise regime on a 'religious' level of importance. Develop a level of body intelligence to combat the dullness learnt from sitting in front of screens for most our developing and adult lives. Learn to feel the inside of your body, the tensions in your head/cranial sacral nerves, inside your tendons, feel the bone marrow at the core of your bones (this last one comes only after decades of practice( if you don't have genetic boost from athletic/physically gifted bloodline) but apparently it's worth it in terms of willful relaxation and awareness of where the days stress has deposited itself). Fast regime in springtime to give liver a chance to rest and clean out system instead of being overloaded with digestive tasks. When everyone worked on the farm years ago, t'was slim pickings come spring, and you didn't get a lot to eat , sugar was a godsend , everyone was poor and you were more 'forced' to eat healthy and pure during springtime. Now it's more of a hard mode hallenree to enter into fasting phase, but usually a HN-reader has the intensity required..' Being socially isolated or lacking a network/community is as bad if not worse than smoking, so, hard as it is in our modern life, seek out a social group to hang out with, esp. important for men as they let these skills diminish as they grow older , letting their wives take up the burden of connecting outwards and setting up social events. You can drink alcohol but don't let alcohol drink you. Get out into nature more on the weekends, shinrin yoku, trees and plants release stress reducing chemicals for us -- if that's too hard to do -- put a plant in your bedroom.

Re: Sperm Count Dropping in Western World

#164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The burden of proof is on the one making unsupported claims, not on the one questioning the unsupported claims. (It's tedious to post supporting studies on every post, so there's nothing nefarious about claims being initially unsupported.) I do agree that the "be careful..." comment is perhaps open to being interpreted as snarky, though it's always hard to infer the intent in a forum such as this.

>The burden of proof is on the one making unsupported claims, not on the one questioning the unsupported claims. When public health issues are concerned, the burden of proof is on the ones saying exposure does not present any risks worth worrying about. The FDA doesn't usually come in with the approach that we should just try everything out and see how it goes.

the FDA is actually very permissive when it comes to food - generally, things are allowed to be in it unless there is strong evidence it's harmful. It's the opposite with drugs.

Re: Sperm Count Dropping in Western World

#165
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The linkage between consumption of these chemicals, and their exact nature of harm, is not well established- it's not "fairly conclusive" at all. What we have is a bunch of in vitro and in vivo studies, but not actual epidemiological evidence of the quality required to make rational policy decisions. If you believe otherwise, I'm happy to ready any high quality studies you can find. Pleaes don't just cherry pick a fe…

That sounds like an excellent reason to throw a lot of money at doing epidemiological studies then, doesn't it? I must say I'm very tired of naysayers with no positive proposals of their own who invoke the scientific method as a way of waving away problematics rather than engaging with their evaluation or mitigation.

Good epidemiology is a great investment. I wouldn't use the term "throw a lot of money"- we want a few good studies with unambiguous conclusions.

Re: Sperm Count Dropping in Western World

#166
Turns out modernity is an extremely unhealthy environment for humans, especially men. Despite the narratives being thrown at you, we live in an incredibly "feminized" society where social stigma/violence/shaming are more powerful for the average person than plain old physical violence.

Re: Sperm Count Dropping in Western World

#167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Countries with low obesity levels show the same trend [1]; just look at e.g. Denmark (18.2%) [2]. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10655308 [2] (PDF) http://www.euro.who.int/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/243294/D...

This suggests an environmental factor or a different dietary one. Probably not BPA or such, there would be more of a difference between western countries. Plus Asia would show it too. (Heck, they make and use a lot of these plastics.) Not atmospheric pollution either apparently (see French result). Electromagnetic wave pollution perhaps?

>Probably not BPA or such, there would be more of a difference between western countries.

Why do you say that? Most western countries use plastic and receipts (thermal paper), which are the main sources.

And BPA isn't the only xenoestrogen. PCBs, dioxins, and many agricultural biocides are too.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenoestrogen#Common_environmen...

http://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/neuroscience/xenoestroge...

Re: Sperm Count Dropping in Western World

#168

My belief is that the primary cause is environmental chemicals, specifically Phthalates and BPA (and related chemicals). The science on this is fairly conclusive. We can show that these chemicals bind to estrogen receptors, that they're present in everyone's body, and that if you're acutely exposed to a higher dose, your testosterone goes down. In my opinion, these chemicals are having social and cultural effects bey…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qr2bSL5VQgM

Re: Sperm Count Dropping in Western World

#169
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like something happened in the early 70s that just made progress slow way down. I keep seeing bad trends start in the 1970s - like stagnant wage growth (1971), increased inequality (1971) etc...

ARPANET was created in 1969. Distract all your geniuses with cat pictures and flame wars, and doom is sure to follow.

Did arpanet already have porn? Then i blame men are whacking it more since 1969...

Re: Sperm Count Dropping in Western World

#170
post #166

Turns out modernity is an extremely unhealthy environment for humans, especially men. Despite the narratives being thrown at you, we live in an incredibly "feminized" society where social stigma/violence/shaming are more powerful for the average person than plain old physical violence.

Why is social pressure necessarily feminine and violence necessarily masculine?
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