
Sperm Count in Western Men Has Dropped Over 50 Percent Since 1973, Paper Finds - acdanger
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/16/health/male-sperm-count-problem.html?smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur&_r=0
======
AndrewKemendo
Previously:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14855796](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14855796)

As I said in that thread, this is another statistic that had a rapid and
precipitous change starting in the early 1970s. I've stated this elsewhere,
but it's like something(s) happened the late 60s/early 70s that totally
transformed our world and I have no clue what they were nor can I find anyone
who has written about it.

Wealth inequality [1], Real Wage stagnation [2], Obesity Rates [3], Divorce
Rates [4]

[1]
[http://inequality.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/Pathways-...](http://inequality.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/Pathways-
SOTU-2016-Wealth-Inequality-3.pdf)

[2] [http://www.epi.org/publication/charting-wage-
stagnation/](http://www.epi.org/publication/charting-wage-stagnation/)

[3]
[http://az616578.vo.msecnd.net/files/2015/11/20/6358359882436...](http://az616578.vo.msecnd.net/files/2015/11/20/6358359882436216361965175721_obese.gif)

[4] [http://www.stateofourunions.org/2009/si-
divorce.php](http://www.stateofourunions.org/2009/si-divorce.php)

~~~
will_brown
As to (3) obesity, one of the most obvious contributing factors is the
increased refined sugar consumption. People are poisoning their mind and
bodies.

And I know it's controversial and since everyone consumes sugar, everyone gets
sensitive and defensive. However, in the 60's/70's nonalcoholic fatty liver
disease did not exist in children nor did childhood type 2 diabeties, as to
the former the first case in children wasn't diagnosed until 1983 and now 10%
of US children have the disease.

And to preempt anyone from attacking my comment, as I said above sugar is an
obvious _contributing_ factor.

~~~
Houshalter
This is the common theory but it doesn't really hold up. The weight of lab
animals is also increasing. Even though we have records showing they haven't
changed their diets or routines significantly. Chimpanzees in particular, the
animal most closely related to humans, have increased in weight drastically
each decade.

EDIT: Source [https://aeon.co/essays/blaming-individuals-for-obesity-
may-b...](https://aeon.co/essays/blaming-individuals-for-obesity-may-be-
altogether-wrong)

>As were laboratory macaques, chimpanzees, vervet monkeys and mice, as well as
domestic dogs, domestic cats, and domestic and feral rats from both rural and
urban areas. In fact, the researchers examined records on those eight species
and found that average weight for every one had increased. The marmosets
gained an average of nine per cent per decade. Lab mice gained about 11 per
cent per decade. Chimps, for some reason, are doing especially badly: their
average body weight had risen 35 per cent per decade.

>In fact, lab animals’ lives are so precisely watched and measured that the
researchers can rule out accidental human influence: records show those
creatures gained weight over decades without any significant change in their
diet or activities.

~~~
justboxing
> This is the common theory but it doesn't really hold up.

It's not really a 'theory' per sey. 2 independent scientists in UK and US ( I
don't remember their names, see the documentary mentioned below) in the 70s
came to conclude that Sugar is Toxic and causes fatty liver disease and
Cancer. The Sugar Industry in US hired a PR firm comprised of a couple of well
known Scientists in the US, and made these scientists who found out that Sugar
is Toxic and causes diseases, looks like fools in the media. Then they (Sugar
Industry) went 1 step further. The CEO of the Sugar Industry Association (or
whatever that entity is called) got onto the FDA committee that was doing
research into the toxicity of Sugar at that time, since it was all over the
media that Sugar is deemed toxic and causes all kinds of diseases. And
surprise, surprise, the committee declared that Sugar is 'GRAS approved by
FDA'. GRAS = Generally Recommended as Safe, a label that makes the average
consumer feel safe that Sugar is not bad. They (Sugar Industry) also
simultaneously transferred the blamed for weight gain on excess consumption of
fat * .

This is documented at length in the "Sugar Coated" documentary (available on
Netflix) - [http://sugarcoateddoc.com/](http://sugarcoateddoc.com/)

* Source: NPR: "50 Years Ago, Sugar Industry Quietly Paid Scientists To Point Blame At Fat" [http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/09/13/493739074/...](http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/09/13/493739074/50-years-ago-sugar-industry-quietly-paid-scientists-to-point-blame-at-fat)

~~~
will_brown
The most famous line from the special interest groups, "sugar is a healthy and
inexpensive source of energy."

It's laughable it's even debated or requires modern study. Humans have been
force feeding animals grains since at least ancient Egypt for the purpose of
fattening animals, but specifically their liver. After a few thousand years of
perfecting the practice the most famous dish is goose liver or foie gras,
literally French for fat liver, and after thousands of years of best practice
what is used to fatten the goose liver...corn, the same thing we concentrate
to sweeten softdrinks (and about everything else).

Still I'm happy to say it's just a contributing factor for obesity, but
certainly there is also correlation between obesity and sedentary life style,
and coming full circle to the article there is correlation between sedentary
lifestyle and lack of testosterone production (in part created/released to
repair muscle As a result of physical activity). But hey, even big tobacco is
marketing there product as healthy in many parts of the world, as it used to
be promoted in the US, it's just where we are with sugar, "it's a healthy and
inexpensive source of energy."

------
teekert
Quote from article (meant as response to AndrewKemendo): "Phthalates are a
group of chemicals used to make plastics more flexible and harder to break. In
several studies over the last two decades, they have been shown to disrupt the
operation of male hormones like testosterone and have been linked to genital
birth defects in male infants.

Dr. Swan, who conducted a 2008 study about phthalate exposure, said that
scientists have had the ability to measure exposure to plasticizers only since
about 2000, via urine. That has led to a 20-year lag in the process since
researchers cannot enroll men to produce sperm until they are in their 20s.

That evidence is the “missing piece of the puzzle,” she said."

Here in the Netherlands several partie are trying ot get hormone disturbing
substances on the political agenda but even BPA is apparently not even illegal
here. There was even a show where they measured BPA in the urine of
politicians and still, very little attention is given to such substances. [0]

[[https://radar.avrotros.nl/uitzendingen/gemist/14-11-2016/hor...](https://radar.avrotros.nl/uitzendingen/gemist/14-11-2016/hormoonverstorende-
stoffen-in-urine-kamerleden/)]

~~~
adrianN
Another problem is that if you ban BPA you have to replace it with something
else that makes plastics less brittle. It's completely unclear whether the
replacement chemical will be better or worse. Almost all chemicals we use
industrially are untested.

~~~
AstralStorm
Albeit if you do not need durability or huge oil resistance you can go very
far with silicone tubing which does not need plasticizers. Nobody likes the
expense or maintenance though.

------
cameldrv
I think it's pretty clear that Phthalates are a big piece of the puzzle.
Here's the chain of evidence: I just picked one study for every link, but
there are many for each.

People have significant levels of Phthalates in their blood:
[http://www.ourstolenfuture.org/NewScience/oncompounds/phthal...](http://www.ourstolenfuture.org/NewScience/oncompounds/phthalates/2003/2003-0101kochetal.htm)

People who have higher levels of Phthalates in their blood tend to have lower
testosterone:
[http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/830137](http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/830137)

There are several pathways how Phthalates might cause this to happen in the
human body, including:
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26385792](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26385792)

Testosterone levels in Men have been dropping about 1% per year for at least
the past 20 years, about the same rate as sperm counts:
[https://www.healio.com/endocrinology/hormone-
therapy/news/pr...](https://www.healio.com/endocrinology/hormone-
therapy/news/print/endocrine-
today/%7Bac23497d-f1ed-4278-bbd2-92bb1e552e3a%7D/generational-decline-in-
testosterone-levels-observed)

Low Testosterone causes low sperm count:
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6772497](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6772497)

~~~
Tharkun
Have there been any studies on how to reduce phthalate levels in humans? Does
limiting exposure help? Can the body expell the stuff?

~~~
cameldrv
I know of one, fairly questionable study that showed that you could reduce
Phthalates in your blood by about 50% by eliminating processed food, never
storing or heating food in plastic, and switching to Phthalate free personal
care products. There have been a few studies that have shown that the main
route of exposure is through ingestion. Processed foods are more likely to
contain Phthalates, probably because the ingredients may have flowed through
PVC tubing that leaches them. It's really impossible to know, but the fewer
processing steps your food has gone through, the less chance that this has
happened. The biggest industrial use of Phthalates is as a plasticizer, and
they are present in several types of plastic, in large quantities. Heating
food in plastic containers has the potential to volatilize Phthalates and
leach them into your food. This is a particular risk in prepared frozen food
that you microwave. Many personal care products, such as soaps, shampoos,
deodorants, and perfumes, contain Phthalates. Try to find ones that don't.

One particularly bad source of exposure is certain enteric coated medicines
and supplements. I would strongly advise anyone to not take anything that is
enteric coated unless you know what the coating is made of. Some pills can
spike Phthalate levels by 50x in a single dose.

Almost all foods that contain animal fat will contain Phthalates, and this is
a big source of exposure. Milk, meat, cheese, etc, all contain them, as they
are fat soluble. The good news is that your body seems to clear these
chemicals fairly quickly, but the problem is that you're constantly exposed to
them.

Ultimately, these are chemicals that we've produced over a billion tons of.
It's just not possible to avoid them entirely. If you have a baby on the way
though, make sure that the new mom does everything she can to minimize
exposure, as what happens during that time really can never be taken back.

------
chrisreichel
I was surprised to see Brazil, Chile and Mexico categorized as 'Non-Western
countries'.

~~~
nextstep
Yeah I saw that too... I don’t understand. Is Western a political definition?

~~~
oculusthrift
The term 'west' outdates the discovery of America and no longer has anything
to do with Geography. It used to mean western Europe. Now it essentially means
western Europe, canada, australia, and america. All of which have cultural
roots in Western europe and liberalism etc.

~~~
emmelaich
Yep, and "South" is a somewhat archaic term to refer to developing countries.
Australia is not of the "South" despite being in the southern hemisphere.[1]

It's also weird to refer to the Asian countries north-west of Australia as
"Far East"; though that usage is also fading.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North%E2%80%93South_divide](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North%E2%80%93South_divide)

------
Tycho
Is this result beyond dispute? No chance it's just a problem with the
measurements/methodology?

~~~
kirrent
Not beyond dispute at all. There's a huge number of confounding factors
involved in comparing all the different datasets used over the time period
concerned. One example is that older tests famously overestimated sperm
counts. Additionally, many of the older data is from observational studies of
people presenting at early fertility clinics. This paper attempts to control
those factors and while I haven't seen any particular criticism of their
methods it's an incredibly difficult problem to deal with. Especially when
sperm count appears to be so responsive to small environmental variations to
begin with.

It'll be interesting to see more research in the field, probably spurred on by
this study. Questions that need to be answered include, why only Western
countries? Does that imply a correlation between technological development and
fertility? What are the trends in Korea and Japan looking like considering
they modernised a while before many of their neighbours? Halving counts sounds
like a lot, but it isn't really and teasing out the ultimate causes is
probably going to be incredibly difficult.

------
whizzkid
My theory goes like this;

> In the recently released research, no significant decline in sperm quality
> was seen in men from non-Western countries, but this segment made up only
> about a quarter of the results.

There is something in developed countries that the male do not experience
during his lifetime. It can be lack of fear, adrenalin, less activity, or
something else. I think statistics hold up with the historic wars as well. As
WW2 ends and people starts living without any fear of life, male sperm quality
drops.

I think it is about what male experiences and which hormons are triggered in
his lifetime.

~~~
pasquinelli
that sounds magical.

~~~
AstralStorm
It is easily testable. Take samples of war veterans.

~~~
whizzkid
Not sure if it helps though. It has been so long since they have experienced a
tough life, levels may already gone back to same levels as others.

------
cmurf
Something in the water or the milk? Something basic enough that a significant
majority is in contact, but culturally distinct enough that a significant
minority elsewhere are not in contact.

------
byproxy
Are we headed into a "Children of Men" scenario?

~~~
petermcneeley
Children of men was infertility of women.

~~~
markcerqueira
The novel the movie was based upon used male infertility. Movie switched that
and pinned the infertility on females.

That said, infertility on the man or woman doesn't matter much in a "we want
to make babies scenario." The end result is the same: a world like that in The
Children of Men.

------
innovate
could we be simply better at doing these tests? eg more accuracy today vs
~44yrs ago?

------
ge96
Man that's messed up about the plastic. Everytime I heat up food in plastic
now at my job I will think some guy out there I'm killing his sperm. Ahh the
sugar too man... Alright will try to keep that in mind when eating/shopping.

Soda though, it's what keeps me awake/engaged at work, coke it's nasty as hell
but... There is also unsweetened tea, I don't know if it's too strong, seems
to have the opposite effect of feeling more alert. Often I go to work without
sleep but that's my own problem, that's why I look forward to being self
employed haha.

------
DKnoll
I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist
indoctrination, Communist subversion, and the international Communist
conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids.

------
nocoder
The phathalates hypothesis sounds plausible to me. However, it will be a
combination of factors social, economical and biological. One hypothesis, I
have been thinking of is about relation between the age of the father when the
child was conceived and it's correlation with sperm count of the child when he
grows up.

I am not sure if this data was collected in the study. Does anyone know about
any such study?

------
marze
Can anyone summarize the various theories developed to explain this decline?

~~~
Deestan
The ones I have read while scrolling to this comment:

1\. Jet fuel

2\. Sugar

3\. Plastics

4\. Space Rockets

5\. The gays

~~~
JPLeRouzic
Thanks, you can add changes in body's probiotics and water contamination.

Water contamination is my favorite, animals share water with us and it is
treated with obsolete technologies (and people fantasize about springs and
pure aquiferes when it is mostly about recycling used water or polluted water
from rivers and swamps)

------
techaddict009
What does Western Men means exactly? (I am from India so asking.) As every
country has their own west. Does this mean West of US? Or West of whole world?

~~~
romanovcode
EU + USA

~~~
hawski
... + Canada + Australia

------
roceasta
I find this fascinating. It's an important biological phenomenon and we don't
know if it's due to culture or to chemistry.

------
RichardHeart
Could this be from progress in pornography?

~~~
110011
It's sad that perhaps the most plausible (of the discussed reasons so far in
this thread) is being downvoted. I guess people believe what they want to
believe.

Anecdotally, I have felt (and sounded) a whole better ever since I stopped
consuming porn. There is also a very real drive and stubbornness that I feel
in myself, markedly higher than before.

I would chalk (without evidence but as a hypothesis) decreased levels of T to:
- not working out (and having a desk job), - increased consumption of porn, -
harmful substances in mass produced food that we don't understand fully.

~~~
ge96
I mean... If you stopped for a week would you have more? Or is it the same
everyday haha.

------
visarga
In other news, population still rising.

~~~
txmx2000
Decellerating worldwide and decreasing within a couple of decades.

------
MicroBerto
Atrazine.... And all the other endicrine disruptors.

Packaged food is literally toxic at this point.

------
chewz
Perhaps the Nature is starting to fight back against explosion of human
population and associated damage.

------
stephen82
One word: stress.

------
derping69
BPA, birth control/estrogen in water, and increased obesity rates would be my
guess.

~~~
PrimHelios
>birth control/estrogen in water

Is that actually a thing? I didn't find any sources definitively showing it
was enough to warrant a concern.

~~~
azr79
women take birth control

they pee and flush

this water gets processed and re injected back into the pipes

if you make the mistake to drink the tap water where they re purpose it from
the canalisations, you just drink birth control water.

~~~
xaqfox
Sounds like you have a local water supply problem if they serve you recycled
sewage (or a regretful plumbing problem).

~~~
codewritinfool
This is common among communities living on the Mississippi River, for example.

------
paulcole
Anxiously awaiting the first comment on the feminizing effects of soy...

~~~
marze
Here you go:

[http://www.menshealth.com/nutrition/soys-negative-
effects](http://www.menshealth.com/nutrition/soys-negative-effects)

~~~
waterhouse
In particular, the article says:

"In a Harvard study published last year in the journal Human Reproduction,
Jorge E. Chavarro, M.D., Sc.D., and his colleagues found a strong association
between men’s consumption of soy foods and decreased sperm counts."

The study in question seems to be this:

[https://academic.oup.com/humrep/article/23/11/2584/2913898/S...](https://academic.oup.com/humrep/article/23/11/2584/2913898/Soy-
food-and-isoflavone-intake-in-relation-to)

"The intake of 15 soy-based foods in the previous 3 months was assessed for 99
male partners of subfertile couples who presented for semen analyses to the
Massachusetts General Hospital Fertility Center. ... There was an inverse
association between soy food intake and sperm concentration that remained
significant after accounting for age, abstinence time, body mass index,
caffeine and alcohol intake and smoking. In the multivariate-adjusted
analyses, men in the highest category of soy food intake had 41 million
sperm/ml less than men who did not consume soy foods." (For reference, various
sources say anywhere from 20 to 150 million sperm/ml is average.)

Contrariwise, the Wiki article on soy points to this meta-study (from four
years before the above):

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20378106](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20378106)

"Clinical evidence also indicates that isoflavones have no effect on sperm or
semen parameters, although only three intervention studies were identified and
none were longer than 3 months in duration."

Here's another from a few months after the meta-study:

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19819436](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19819436)

That last one seems to be a randomized controlled study, where they gave a
bunch of college men either milk protein or one of two variants of soy
protein.

I don't know if there's anything in soy that isn't in the "soy protein
isolates" from the last study. If there isn't, then the last study seems like
strong evidence. The first one could conceivably come down to some sort of
selection bias.

------
hyperdunc
I've noticed over the last 20 or so years that men in the West, in general,
appear increasingly effeminate.

I've also noticed that a lot of male pop stars have really high voices.

I've long suspected these observations are more than cultural. Recent studies
seem to back this intuition.

~~~
brian-armstrong
Is this sort of pseudoscientific anecdata what passes for discourse on HN now?
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence - where's yours?

~~~
icelancer
This is only the most egregious comment in here, not the only one in general.
Someone above is talking about gut microbiome (which we know vanishingly
little about) as being a primary causer, diet is apparently 100% the issue
(colinear effects in other populations throw water on this theory pretty
hard), plastics are a real problem (no evidence supports this, though there is
a significant lag), etc.

Basically no one wants to just say "No one knows, let's keep researching."
Everyone has to chime in. That'd be one thing if it was relegated to HN or
forums, but it's true in the "scientific" community [1] and the media as well;
perhaps moreso.

[1] Of which I am sadly a part of, so don't think I am an anti-science person,
just anti-parts of this ridiculous industry.

~~~
kirrent
I think the thing that's worth remembering about HN is that it's far more of a
forum for engineers than scientists. The user base here is very well read,
very interesting, a pleasure to interact with, and a lot of the time very
obviously technically skilled. They are not, as a general rule, particularly
scientifically literate.

