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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

#231

Post by bell-cot »

standardUser wrote: post #89
DoingIsLearning wrote: post #34

> Swan also recommends reducing exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals by being a savvy consumer Most hygiene products get away with listing diethyl phthalate as 'Parfum'. What we need is not savvy consumers what we need is regulators to get serious.

I get reliably downvoted for suggesting this, but we need vastly better labelling across the board. We give companies a lot of leeway when it comes to selling things to put in and on our bodies without us, owners of said bodies, having any way of finding out what the hell is in their products, or where they came from, or how they were processed. It absolutely baffles me how everyone doesn't want considerably more inf…

"Ignorance is bliss" is safe, zero-effort, and anxiety-free - until it isn't.

And when it isn't - both the "not just a river in Egypt" and "blame some handy & culturally appropriate boogeyman" strategies are popular and low-effort. And usually enjoy widespread social support.

Re: Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought

#232

Post by ne0flex »

e40 wrote: post #209
PakG1 wrote: 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…

What did it cost? My understanding is that it is not cheap.

If you're in the US, it's possible it can be covered by insurance. My wife and I are in the process of doing IVF. Though it can be very expensive - the injection medications cost a total of $16K. Thankfully, it's covered by my health insurance and I had a $100 co-pay. PGTA screening is not covered by my insurance and to my knowledge costs about $1k. Other parts in the IVF process vary in cost but most is covered by my insurance with a $45 co-pay.

Re: Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought

#233

Post by itsoktocry »

highwaylights wrote: post #135
DoingIsLearning wrote: post #34

> Swan also recommends reducing exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals by being a savvy consumer Most hygiene products get away with listing diethyl phthalate as 'Parfum'. What we need is not savvy consumers what we need is regulators to get serious.

I agree with you, but I don't know how helpful this will end up being. Endocrine disruptors are airborne and globally ubiquitous in the form of micro-plastics. All drinking water in the world is contaminated with it. [1] I'm really not meaning to be dramatic on this, but we've completely missed the boat on this one while we were arguing about climate change, and it's much too late to do anything about it now.[2] I'll…

>the science seems to indicate it's much more likely that humanity will die off with a quiet whimper in a few generations.

You didn't include a link to support the claim that humans only have "a few hundred years left at most". I think this is extremely unlikely to be true. What is your recommended reading?

Re: Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought

#234

Post by usefulcat »

Jemm wrote: post #211
prox wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would be massively in favour of adding a QR Code that details as much as possible (without giving away trade secrets if that is possible) where and how something is sourced and then adding how it was processed. Much like you get a track and trace with a package.

I think you forget that most people don't have basic competency with even their phones. Most have no clue how to scan a QR code.

It's still an improvement over the status quo.

Re: Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought

#235

Post by houtanb »

Several years ago, I switched to products that are EWG verified [1], meaning a product's ingredients are safe for humans. Some of the EWG verified products are quite expensive, so it took a while to find a brand that was affordable and safe to use. I've switched everything to that brand (shampoo, conditioner, soap, dishwasher and laundry detergent, cleaners, ...).

They even have a search engine that allows you to search for products [2] or ingredients. If don't know what's in your products, I encourage you to start here to find out more about the ingredients.

[1] https://www.ewg.org/skindeep/ewgverified/

[2] https://www.ewg.org/skindeep/

Re: Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought

#236

Post by whalesalad »

shawnz wrote: post #199
DevX101 wrote: post #158

The thesis of the book 'Countdown' is that this is largely due to widespread plastic and other endocrine disrupting chemicals. I believe this is one of the most important risks to humanity, after climate change, and global war. So far, I've taken some lifestyle changes to combat this: 1) Threw out all of my teflon cooking pans 2) Refuse to consume food in heated plastics 3) Throw out teabags (they have plastics). Use…

> I strongly suspect BPA-free plastics have similar endocrine effects Based on what? BPA is the monomer which makes up polycarbonate plastic, and it's a simple molecule which has been known to be an estrogen analogue for nearly 100 years. Other kinds of plastics besides polycarbonate are made from much different kinds of monomers which have no structural similarity to BPA, so why should we assume that the risk carrie…

BPA was banned, so they tweaked it into BPB, BPS, BPF, and BPAF, etc... it's a game of whack-a-mole. They're all terrible for us.

Re: Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought

#237

Post by Auracle »

AlgorithmicTime wrote: post #59
kneebonian wrote: post #39

It is interesting, I have a friend group that consists of about 5 married couples all of whom have been having issues conceiving and have been trying for a while now, but are still having issues. Curiously enough my wife and I just had our 4th and every time we've conceived within two months (even when I was hoping it would take a little longer). From what I hear our friends story is not unusual and many in our age b…

Interesting. Our first took about 4 or 5 months? I think my wife stopped her birth control at the end of July and we conceived in December. Our second took 2 months, my wife stopped her birth control in September and we conceived in November. We're both in our mid-30s. Anecdotally, my wife's sister and her husband have been trying for almost a year? And they've had one miscarriage and nothing else.

My wife’s sister got pregnant her second time before she even had her period after their first baby. My wife and I tried 3 years with several IUI rounds and eventually had to resort to IVF.

Re: Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought

#238

Post by guessbest »

Arete314159 wrote: post #95
bhouston wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your sperm does reset ever 75 days. Depending on the problem, it may be fixable. Exercise and raising testosterone will have a meaningful effect. Also check the various products you are using for endocrine disruptors and also you can go organic in terms of food (avoids pesticides, which are suspected of playing a role.)

I am not a man, but this reminds me of a time years ago when I started to have allergic reactions to things several times a day. My allergist put me on a strict elimination diet of triggers. I could only use unscented products for bathing and laundry, organic food only, and I even had to get rid of my teflon pans and use only stainless steel or cast iron. It sucked but it did seem to help, maybe you could try somethi…

I got rid of my teflon, but I switched to galvanized copper. Its easy to clean.

Re: Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought

#239

Post by giardini »

dec0dedab0de wrote: post #210
standardUser wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get reliably downvoted for suggesting this, but we need vastly better labelling across the board. We give companies a lot of leeway when it comes to selling things to put in and on our bodies without us, owners of said bodies, having any way of finding out what the hell is in their products, or where they came from, or how they were processed. It absolutely baffles me how everyone doesn't want considerably more inf…

I 100% agree. It blew my mind that vanilla extract is not extracted from vanilla, and they're allowed to label artificial vanilla as vanilla extract because real vanilla extract tastes different, and people are already used to the other flavor matching the name. There are tons of examples and loopholes like this.

This. The artificial vanilla extract tastes far better than the natural.

I tire of being the fool buying expensive tasteless natural organic foods and spices!

Re: Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought

#240

Post by 310260 »

twixfel wrote: post #200
PuppyTailWags wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair I think it is kinda racist to categorize sperm as either "Western" sperm vs "other" sperm. They couldn't do the bare fucking minimum and at least separate by continent or wealth? Health?

Maybe it's not the bare minimum? Maybe they had limited funding, largely access only to "Western sperm" (which actually is a reasonable category I would argue because we share a lifestyle to a greater or lesser degree), maybe they had sparse data that covered simply "not the West".

If you have sparse data, then maybe you shouldn't be making grand comparisons or trying to make claims about the entire world?
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