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Questionable results Men have less and less sperm
Several years ago, a study was published that showed that French have less and less sperm. According to a recent study, however, her peers from other European countries do not fare better. According to the latest findings, the sperm count per milliliter of semen has fallen dramatically in western men.
Men from Western countries produce less sperm
According to a recent study, the number of sperm from men from Europe and other western regions is decreasing. As the researchers report in the journal "Human Reproduction Update", was the sperm count per milliliter of sperm among men from Western countries between 1973 and 2011 by 52.4 percent. The total sperm count per ejaculation, according to the scientists even 59.3 percent.
According to a new study, men produce fewer and fewer sperm in Western countries. The cause of the decline are many factors. (Image: Sebastian Kaulitzki / fotolia.com) Exposure to environmental toxins
Earlier research had shown that the number of sperm in men has fallen in some European countries.
This decline has been linked, inter alia, to pollution from environmental toxins.
In addition, studies showed that a high-fat diet of the father, too much cola and marijuana harms the sperm.
And mobile phones in the pants have apparently a negative impact on the number of sperm.
Urgent wake-up call for experts
The head of the current study, Hagai Levine from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, said, "The results are pretty shocking," according to a report in the British newspaper The Guardian.
"Given the importance of sperm for male fertility and human health, this study is an urgent wake-up call for researchers and health officials around the world," Levine is quoted in the Times of Israel.
According to a news agency dpa, Artur Mayerhofer of the BioMedicine Center of the Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich points to the results: "Sperm functionality as well as morphological changes were not considered in this analysis."
"Whether it can be deduced from the data that men have thus become really infertile, remains open", so the estimation of the scientist, who was not involved in the analysis.
tip of the iceberg
According to Mayerhofer, however, the falling sperm count may just be the tip of the iceberg. In his opinion, the trend, to which the work hints, is questionable:
an increase in testicular tumors, cryptorchidism (abdominal testes) and other problems as well as an association with general morbidity and mortality.
To reach their conclusions, Levine and colleagues from Israel, Brazil, Denmark, Spain, and the US evaluated 244 sperm counts from 185 studies conducted on just under 43,000 men.
Distinctions were made between participants from countries with Western lifestyles (Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand) and the rest of the world (especially Asia, Africa and South America). From the latter came 28 percent of the data.
Decline is strong and persistent
On a statistical average, the number of sperm per milliliter of Western men declined by 1.4 percent between 1973 and 2011, and by as much as 1.6 percent per sperm sample.
According to the figures, these figures refer to those men who have not been identified as capable of reproduction. For those with children, the annual decline in the number per milliliter and the total was about 0.8 percent each.
In the other regions of the world no statistically significant trend was recognized.
"This clear study shows for the first time that this decline is strong and persistent," said co-author Shanna Swan of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, USA, according to the Times of Israel..
The fact that the decline is particularly noticeable in western countries strongly indicates that external factors such as chemicals and lifestyle "play a causal role in this trend," she said.
Researchers say the exact reasons for the decline need to be further investigated in order to take countermeasures.
Numerous reasons for a decrease in sperm count
According to Stefan Schlatt from the University Hospital Münster, who was not involved in the study, the investigation provides a good basis for discussion. However, the indicated tendency is only slightly questionable:
"If one looks at the concrete numbers, they are still far above the values that the World Health Organization indicates as the lower limit of fertility," according to the expert.
Although the number of sperm in the assessment of fertility is decisive, but also play a role in how mobile the sperm are and whether they may be malformed. This was not considered in the study.
According to the physician, numerous causes are suspected as reasons for the decrease in the number of sperm: from the too-warm diaper in infants to aspirin to the mobile phone in the trouser pocket.
As an important reason for decreasing fertility, Schlatt sees men becoming older and older when they start a family. Because with increasing age the sperm quality decreases. (Ad)