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Habits of cell phone usage and sperm quality

rbmojournal.com

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Re: Habits of cell phone usage and sperm quality

#81

Post by snowwrestler »

dekhn wrote: post #72
snowwrestler wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's fine for researchers to go look for other causes. It's not fine to expect that they will disregard what we already know. Well-supported scientific theories should be used to constrain the search space when addressing new problems, otherwise we'll get stuck re-proving the same basic things over and over again. If every epidemiological study causes us to question everything we thought we knew, it's going to be har…

"Well-supported scientific theories should be used to constrain the search space when addressing new problems, otherwise we'll get stuck re-proving the same basic things over and over again." I think QM showed this was pretty much not an acceptable position to take.

Could quantum mechanics be wrong? Yes.

Are we going to discover that by surveying 100 infertile guys? No.

Re: Habits of cell phone usage and sperm quality

#82

Post by lvs »

rubidium wrote: post #25
yummyfajitas wrote: post #20

I can't critique the article directly, since it's behind a paywall. But I can take the purported results and do some Bayesian analysis with it. Take first a prior - due to my knowledge of physics, my prior on microwave/RF/visual radiation having any biological effect is 10^{-5}. Multiphoton ionization has simply never been observed to happen except under extremely intense (read: it'll melt you) fields and there are s…

Another former academic physicist here, but with very little understanding of biological tissue+radiation interactions. You state multi-photon ionization is not a possible pathway for biological effects in this case (and I believe that). But are there other pathways? I googled "protein response at 1000 mhz" and got a book "RF / Microwave Interaction with Biological Tissues" that mentioned effects on ATP production at…

There are a number of excitation pathways for organic molecules in water across the spectrum. These resonances will, generally speaking, relax thermally. Of course, the medium is salt water, so dielectric heating is the dominant effect of kHz - GHz RF irradiation, far above and beyond whatever heat is dissipated by the absorbance of distinct molecular resonances.

Re: Habits of cell phone usage and sperm quality

#83

Post by Mikeb85 »

tomp wrote: post #63

Hm... judging by the cover, this looks like absolute crap. > Some studies have shown a continuous decline in semen quality since the beginning of the 20th century. Studies also indicate a continuous decline in testosterone (in males) over 20th century. I'd welcome someone correct my biological knowledge, but I would guess that testosterone influences production of sperm, not the other way round. So they're probably s…

> Studies also indicate a continuous decline in testosterone (in males) over 20th century. I'd welcome someone correct my biological knowledge, but I would guess that testosterone influences production of sperm, not the other way round. So they're probably studying the wrong thing.

Yup. And our society also happens to encourage activities which lower testosterone levels (various things like inactivity, weight gain, poor sleep and stress all sap testosterone levels).

Re: Habits of cell phone usage and sperm quality

#84

Post by scott_s »

cozzyd wrote: post #79

I think you can pretty much reproduce their study from the percentages with the following table (they claim 26 of the 106 did not meet study eligibility criteria, but the total seems to be 79? but then the total isn't consistent between the two categories; I didn't read carefully enough to see if the discrepancy is explained) categories abnormal semen (n=34) normal semen (n=45) talk >1h 14 9 It's interesting to note…

I also noticed that discrepancy in the "talking while charging column"; 21 + 12 = 33 != 34. I briefly looked for an explanation in the text, but I could not find one.

Re: Habits of cell phone usage and sperm quality

#85

Post by pbhjpbhj »

blakesterz wrote: post #2

>> a non-significantly higher rate of abnormal sperm concentration was found (47.1% versus 11.1%). As someone contemplating a vasectomy, that's not quite the result I was hoping for. Sure would be easier to just keep my phone in my front pocket. Though, I suppose I'm not really sure what "abnormal" sperm end up doing. It's kind of implied that means they just don't work when the abstract starts out "Male infertility…

Perhaps you can boost radiation levels by leaving your phone on a call with a white noise generator and tuck the phone in the front of your [under]pants.

Re: Habits of cell phone usage and sperm quality

#86

Post by trhway »

Mikeb85 wrote: post #83
tomp wrote: post #63

Hm... judging by the cover, this looks like absolute crap. > Some studies have shown a continuous decline in semen quality since the beginning of the 20th century. Studies also indicate a continuous decline in testosterone (in males) over 20th century. I'd welcome someone correct my biological knowledge, but I would guess that testosterone influences production of sperm, not the other way round. So they're probably s…

> Studies also indicate a continuous decline in testosterone (in males) over 20th century. I'd welcome someone correct my biological knowledge, but I would guess that testosterone influences production of sperm, not the other way round. So they're probably studying the wrong thing. Yup. And our society also happens to encourage activities which lower testosterone levels (various things like inactivity, weight gain, p…

>And our society also happens to encourage activities which lower testosterone levels

also important that natural selection in our society isn't for higher testosterone anymore. Peaceful interaction and coexistence lead to more success than open aggression ("success" here is in natural selection sense, i.e. producing next generation and bringing them into "successful" (in the same sense) adulthood)

Re: Habits of cell phone usage and sperm quality

#87

Post by [deleted] »

evils wrote: post #11
strebler wrote: post #6

Other studies show significantly decreased mobility and sperm quality as well (some in-vitro with microscope). Anecdotally, I'm quite confident this was a factor with our 2nd child. With our 1st, I didn't own a cell phone and he was conceived literally the first try. I bought a smart phone when he was 1, which I carried in my pocket. A few years later, we wanted another child - tried for 10 months with no results! Fr…

Fertility decreases with age, especially in women. That your second child took longer to conceive than the first is no evidence of anything and even less of the influence of cell phone ownership. You might just as well claim that having your first child decreased your fertility, or anything else that happened to you in between. (Bought a new car? A new TV? Different brand toothpaste?)

[deleted]

Re: Habits of cell phone usage and sperm quality

#88

Post by [deleted] »

pc86 wrote: post #15
strebler wrote: post #6

Other studies show significantly decreased mobility and sperm quality as well (some in-vitro with microscope). Anecdotally, I'm quite confident this was a factor with our 2nd child. With our 1st, I didn't own a cell phone and he was conceived literally the first try. I bought a smart phone when he was 1, which I carried in my pocket. A few years later, we wanted another child - tried for 10 months with no results! Fr…

> I'm quite confident this was a factor with our 2nd child. You have absolutely no way of knowing that - you're more likely to be wrong than right.

[deleted]

Re: Habits of cell phone usage and sperm quality

#89

Post by chatmasta »

tomp wrote: post #63

Hm... judging by the cover, this looks like absolute crap. > Some studies have shown a continuous decline in semen quality since the beginning of the 20th century. Studies also indicate a continuous decline in testosterone (in males) over 20th century. I'd welcome someone correct my biological knowledge, but I would guess that testosterone influences production of sperm, not the other way round. So they're probably s…

Any study looking for long term health effects of specific behavior, no matter how good the methodology, is going to wind up looking stupid in the end. There are simply too many variables to account for.

With so many variables to consider, of course the scientists will be able to wrangle some explanation from the data that fits their hypothesis.

This kind of study makes a mockery of the scientific method by following it in name only.

I'm sure you could come to the same conclusion for dozens of factors other than cell phone radiation. How about hormones in the food supply? Work, sleeping habits? Changing life timelines? Social media?

You could attribute literally any new phenomenon from the past century to a correlated observation.

This seems like such poor science it makes me angry my tax dollars are paying for this so-called "research." What a waste of time.

Relevant: http://kill-or-cure.herokuapp.com/

Re: Habits of cell phone usage and sperm quality

#90

Post by zyxzevn »

zyxzevn wrote: post #48

The problem is that we have a bad model to describe the effect of EM-waves on biological tissue. Currently the model defines biological bodies as containers of water. This is clearly wrong. What I propose is standard antenna science. Something needs to resonate with the biological systems. In artificial antennas there are free electrons. In biological bodies there are ions and polar molecules. Most proteins are diama…

Scientific evidence proving my point: http://www.utdallas.edu/news/2016/2/3-31891_Study-Uncovers-H...
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