Invisible man-made chemicals are being linked to increasing infertility

Infertility: handle with care

Extract from the Sunday Telegraph:

"Roughly one third of infertility remains 'unexplained', a third is female-related - apart from the fact that women are trying for children later, sexually transmitted infections and polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) are on the rise - and the rest is male-related. Studies across Europe have recorded an alarming drop in sperm counts and a study not yet released has found the same here in Britain. 'Something has changed in the past 20 or 30 years,' says Allan Pacey, the secretary of the British Fertility Society. 'We don't know what it is, but we need to be very concerned.'

Many modern-day habits are known to play a part - drinking, smoking and overeating for example. What we don't know is whether there's something else going on - in the air we breathe, water we drink and food we eat. The thousands of invisible chemicals that have poured into our world since the Second World War to make life non-breakable, non-stick and flame-resistant are being linked to miscarriage, PCOS, endometriosis, and low sperm counts - as well as testicular cancer, breast cancer and prostate cancer.

Shanna Swan, an epidemiologist at the University of Rochester School of Medicine & Dentistry in America, has spent the past 20 years studying environmental reproductive risks. 'There's no question now that chemical exposures impair fertility,' she says. 'We have 80,000 chemicals in circulation and when we look we see strong evidence that comes out constantly in scientific journals and in small conferences. Yet somehow we haven't reached the tipping point where people take notice. With global warming, it took 20 years. The American surgeon general said in 1964 that cigarettes caused cancer. How long did that take to get around? Maybe it takes a disaster - and I think impairing our ability to reproduce is potentially the most serious disaster there is.'

Two highly ubiquitous chemicals, phthalates (the 'ph' is silent) and bisphenol A, are the cause of most concern. Both chemicals are everywhere - tin cans, baby bottles, water bottles, CDs, plastic toys, the list is endless - and because of their 'leachy' nature (they're not very good at binding to their products) they are in us, too. In a study by Shanna Swan of mothers and babies, all the babies had measurable phthalate levels - and those exposed to the most baby-care products had the highest. Often described as 'endocrine disrupters', phthalates mimic the female hormone oestrogen, so could play havoc with hormones and reproductive systems - particularly in men.

'There's good evidence that sperm counts are falling and that something environmental is going on,' confirms Pacey. Male infertility is now the reason for half of British couples having IVF. While our grandfathers probably had a sperm count of about 120 million in one millilitre of seminal fluid, the average male sperm count now stands at about 60 million. (Anything less than 25/30 million is classified as infertile.) At the same time testicular cancer, which is linked to low sperm counts, is rising fast."

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Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

vulnerable groups

See Sodium in foods and

Associated health conditions and

See FAT RETENTION

Children and Obesity

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/socio.html - social and economic considerations

Consumption of residues of steroids in meat/beef by pregnant women may be lowering fertility in their sons. - Study published in the journal Human Rep

Eating beef could threaten sons' fertility - Telegraph

Extracts:

"Prof Shanna Swan, lead author of the study published in the journal Human Reproduction, said: “These findings suggest that maternal beef consumption is associated with lower sperm concentration and possible sub-fertility, associations that may be related to the presence of anabolic steroids and other xenobiotics (foreign chemicals) in beef.

“Theoretically, the foetus and young children are particularly sensitive to exposure to sex steroids. Therefore, the consumption of residues of steroids in meat by pregnant women and young children is of particular concern.”

But while the study results revealed a significant link between the lowest sperm counts and mothers who were the highest beef consumers, researchers could not pinpoint hormones, pesticides or other environmental chemicals as a direct cause.

“What we’re really doing here is raising an issue,” said Prof Swan, who is director of the Centre for Reproductive Epidemiology at the University of Rochester, New York.

“The average sperm concentration of the men in our study went down as their mothers’ beef intake went up.” "

"Dr Allan Pacey at The University of Sheffield, said: “That hormones given to cattle might have lowered the sperm counts of adult men because their mothers ate a lot of beef when they were pregnant with them, is alarming to say the least. This clearly needs to be investigated further.” "

You really do need to read the whole article because there are conflicting views.