Could it really be possible that sperm quantity and quality is declining due to cellphones in pockets, hormones in water, and Western diet? Although the jury is still out on the effects on sperm of those specific factors, mounting evidence suggests there's a problem with the amount and the quality of sperm in some parts of the world. Doctors in Israel, for example, have noticed this is true in their country.
A recent Los Angeles Times article describes just how bad the situation is in Israel with a simple proportion: only the sperm of 1 in 100 donors makes the cut at one of its sperm banks today, compared to 1 in 10 donors just a decade ago! So what's going on?
Well, nobody really knows for sure the cause of this phenomenon, but many scientists are trying to find out.
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After analyzing eight years worth of sperm-donor data from Boston, Grace Centola, a sperm bank consultant and the president-elect of the Society for Male Reproduction and Urology, says she firmly believes there's a decline. Centola plans to present her findings at a conference later this year.
While men are only responsible for 30 percent of infertility cases, a decline in the quantity and quality of their sperm could point to other health problems that we haven't detected yet. This is particularly worrisome if the culprit is something like a hormonal changes, for example, which could affect much more than sperm.
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Although this is one issue I no longer have to worry about, that doesn't mean I don't care. After all, I have nieces and nephews and younger cousins who one day, in the not so distant future, will be looking to start their own families. Not to mention my own two kids who are a long, long way from becoming parents, but if the situation is like it's been described right now, who knows how it will be once they become adults and start thinking about having their own kids!
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