[ad_1]
The “spermocalypse” advances inexorably. We are not talking about the episodes of a TV series, but about the now well-known one progressive reduction of male fertility. A trend that it would seem to even have quickened the pace in the last decades. Indeed, according to one study recently conducted by a group of researchers from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, in collaboration with teams from several other universities around the world, from 1973 to 2018 the average sperm concentration in the semen of healthy men would be more than halved. The analysis took into account data from 53 countries and 6 different continents.
The novelty of the study
The research team performed a meta-analysis of data included in 223 scientific articles published between 1973 and 2018expanding on a similar study published in 2017. This involved data mainly from North America, Europe and Australiawhile the most recent one also included data from Asia, Africa, Central America and South America. For obvious reasons, studies focused on men with known fertility problems were excluded from the analysis. The results of this new analysis not only confirm previous observations, but indicate that the trend also affects countries that were not included in the 2017 study.
Beyond infertility
There sperm concentration yes it would be reduced by 50% from 1973 to 2018and what is even more surprising is that since 2000 this trend would seem to be accelerating compared to previous years.
Sperm concentration is naturally only one male fertility indexwhich, like the female one, depends on many factors. However, it is considered as a relevant indicator by experts and not only for fertility but also for health status of men: “The worrying drop in sperm concentration and total sperm count in men, of more than 1% per year, as reported in our article – he claims Shanna Swan, co-author of the study and author of the book Countdownalways concerning this topic – is consistent with the negative trends of other men’s health outcomes. These include the testicular cancerthe hormonal alterations hey genital defects at birthas well as the decline in female reproductive health.”
The study did not concern the causes at the basis of this phenomenon, which have in any case been studied in the past and which would seem to include unhealthy lifestyle habits such as alcohol abuse, sedentary lifestyle, active and passive smoking and naturally, environmental pollutionespecially in reference to substances that can interfere with the normal levels of hormones in our body. The article concludes with an invitation to the authors to continue the research work in this sense and on possible actions to prevent further future decline. “We should be amazed and concerned by this discoveryto”, he has declared Hagai Levine, first author of the study: “The downward trend is very clear.”
.
[ad_2]
Source link
