Global decline in male fertility linked to common pesticides

A prolonged decline in male fertility in the form of sperm concentrations appears to be connected to the use of pesticides, according to a study published Wednesday.

Researchers compiled, rated and reviewed the results of 25 studies of certain pesticides and male fertility and found that men who had been exposed to certain classes of pesticides had significantly lower sperm concentrations. The study, published Wednesday in Environmental Health Perspectives, included data from more than 1,700 men and spanned several decades.

“No matter how we looked at the analysis and results, we saw a persistent association between increasing levels of insecticide and decreases in sperm concentration,” said study author Melissa Perry, who is an environmental epidemiologist and the dean of the College of Public Health at George Mason University. “I would hope this study would get the attention of regulators seeking to make decisions to keep the public safe from inadvertent, unplanned impacts of insecticides.”

Luisp,

Glyphosate is stored in the balls

yoz,

Sperm Motility issues 😪

BlackSkinnedJew,

It’s well known the elite has depopulation plans running already in the alimentary fields.

Thann,

Next stop: children of men

corsicanguppy,

Given the role reversal, wouldn’t it be Children of Women ?

Either way, whatever drops the pop … ulation.

Lets get it into the drinking water.

TheControlled,

You’re an idiot and a psychopath.

oatscoop,

Good news: it’s “microplastics” and it already is!

assassin_aragorn,

It looks like the experiment itself was comparing sperm levels between direct exposure and indirect exposure. That tells us that high concentration and direct exposure reduce sperm and establishes the pesticide as capable of doing that. But it doesn’t tell us much about the global decline. Nothing in the article actually links the two together, and they haven’t even linked the actual study.

We know that some harmful substances are benign in small quantities. The everyday radiation we’re exposed to by naturally occuring isotopes doesn’t do anything. On the other hand, X Rays are safe, but the technicians actually have a noticeable increase in cancer risk if they don’t leave the room when they actually take the X Ray. So the latent background radiation there is enough to make a difference.

Ultimately, we still don’t know if the latent exposure we get to these pesticides is enough to cause reproductive harm. If there isn’t a scientifically significant difference in sperm levels between vegans and non vegetarians, I’m inclined to think this isn’t the culprit. But it’s worth further research and cutting back on usage anyway of course. It could be that we’re exposed to enough to cause a decrease in sperm, but not enough that dietary differences would be visible.

(This is why foods and consumer products can have incredibly complex molecules and still be safe. The concentration makes it benign – most of the time. This is why food additives are an interesting topic.)

StupidBrotherInLaw,

Get outta here with your nuanced, well-reasoned opinions!

/s

Just kidding. Great comment and analysis, this is why I love Lemmy.

afraid_of_zombies,

I was told that we haven’t even established that there is a global decline in sperm numbers. That the methods of counting in the past weren’t as good as modern ones, meaning it isn’t a controlled variable of one time.

Also, a long the lines of what you said, I wonder if the number of people with direct exposure has gone up the past few decades or down. Less of the human race is involved with farming as farms have grown in size and output.

CosmicCleric,
@CosmicCleric@lemmy.world avatar

That the methods of counting in the past weren’t as good as modern ones, meaning it isn’t a controlled variable of one time.

That’s actually mentioned an article.

Maggoty,

Wait, you’re telling me that poisons are poison?!?

Oh my God, someone tell the pesticide companies!

Kase,

Lmao I can’t remember his name to find the video, but if anybody knows it, there was this guy who said it’d be safe to drink a glass of Round-Up (or something similar?) and the interviewer deadpan asked him to do it, and the guy was like “no… I’m not stupid”

Sorry for the terrible paraphrasing, it’s a really funny (/sad) video tho

drhugsymcfur,

I mean, TBF if someone walked up to me with an unsealed liquid and combatively asked me to drink it I would refuse too.

madeinthebackseat,

It’s purely anecdotal, but go to a small town in Iowa and you may notice something a little unexpected - there’s seemingly a larger than normal population of gay and transgender people.

Again, anecdotal, but I visit there frequently for work. My gut tells me the crop treatments are screwing with hormones…unless there’s some other explanation.

GBU_28,

Proooobbbbably that those folks finally feel remotely safe being “out”

SeaJ,

Sure thing, Alex.

wildginger,

People mock the gay frogs thing, but pesticide runoff was mucking with frog hormones, causing a genuine physical sex shift. Frogs are capable of shifting sex under specific conditions, and the chemical pollution was forcing the change. Huge ecological damage.

It was perhaps the single time alex jones was correct about anything, and if he hadnt called the frogs gay he probably wouldnt have been mocked for it.

Eufalconimorph,

It was making them trans, not gay.

queermunist,
@queermunist@lemmy.ml avatar

I honestly wonder if being exposed to xenoestrogens in the womb is why I’m trans.

I’m not unhappy about it, just something I think about!

EmpathicVagrant,

They do that anyway if the population ratio is off by enough, but yeah they transitioned much more rapidly and more often. They also would excrete everything at once so currently male frogs would read another current male as a mate. Technically it was a grain of truth with zero nuance

guckfoogle,

I grew up in Iowa, and I live in a large Ohio city now. There are barely any LGBT folks in Iowa, even per capita, it’s just not normal or accepted there en mass. There was literally only one gay kid in my high school of 1500.

I move to Cleveland, then I meet more LGBT people than I have ever seen in my life, even having 4 lesbians in my workplace and one FTM.

But social media is probably the biggest driving factor behind the rise of so many LGBT people in the past decade.

isthingoneventhis,

You mean there was only 1 kid who was “out”

gandalf_der_12te,

And also I believe that 80% of the population are actually “frog” sexual, meaning they change their sexuality depending on societal expectations and environmental factors.

CoffeeJunkie,

“I visit there frequently…for work…” 😏

afraid_of_zombies,

Observation bias I imagine that and the more open society. There were always LGBT people, they just were in the closet when the theist were determined to murder them.

gandalf_der_12te,

it’s also the cosmetics that contain a shitload of hormones or stuff that messes with hormones, that causes a behavioral shift in society.

ExLisper,

Who cares? Kids suck

ikidd,
@ikidd@lemmy.world avatar

Most of the studies were about people applying the insecticides, not the general public. And it’s well known that insecticides are far from safe, if you aren’t wearing PPE around them you’re going to pay a price.

Phlogiston,

Even if this was ‘only’ an issue for the people that make all our food its an important issue and pesticide drift is a thing. so its also an issue for the people that live near where our food is made

assassin_aragorn,

Not necessarily. The level or concentration of it really matters.

Radiation is a good example of this. Standing next to a leaking nuclear reactor would be very, very bad for instance. But we also get hit with radiation everyday from naturally occuring sources. Radon is naturally in the air, and anything with carbon will have the teeniest amount of a radioactive carbon isotope too. Hell, even X rays with proper shielding still get you a dose. All of this background radiation though is benign. Everyday normal exposure isn’t harmful.

The question is how much we need to be exposed to for it to be harmful, and that’s the unanswered question about pesticides. Going back to radiation, being an X Ray technician is actually enough exposure to cause harm if you’re always in the room when it goes off. We didn’t realize this until they started showing notably higher rates of cancer. There’s also some mercury compounds that are so toxic, a researcher followed all the proper procedures and still died from exposure because it turned out the little amount that got through all the protection was still a fatal dose. We literally had no idea.

So are pesticides causing a sperm reduction? We have absolutely no idea. That doesn’t mean we can’t cut back on it anyway though.

Vilian,

the male fertily and sperm count are skrinking on every male, not only the ones applying insecticides

Cannacheques,

Imagine if your sperm count spiked from insecticide exposure haha, what a plot twist that would be

wooki,

Conflating baseless claims. Keep up the shitposting

wildginger,

the comment is saying our research is only done on people directly applying the spray. As in, tests for safe levels of exposure.

assassin_aragorn,

Yeah unfortunately it doesn’t tell us if the level of exposure the everyday person gets is enough to be harmful

pensivepangolin,

Im a little offended that Monsanto thinks my sperm are insects if I’m being honest

nameisnotimportant,
@nameisnotimportant@lemmy.ml avatar

This is fantastic news, all the better for the planet 👍

GutsBerserk,

Not really, a regular sized corporation pollutes / destroys more than a dozen million of humans

GregoryTheGreat,

Is this a bad thing? Fewer kids in the future seems like a win.

BolexForSoup,
BolexForSoup avatar

Not everyone agrees with this

GregoryTheGreat,

How long can growth continue in a finite system though. It must slow down eventually. Why not now?

bluGill,
bluGill avatar

Growth is slowing. While the exact top isn't clear, anyone who looks at this stuff has concluded the earth's population will peak sometime in the next 50years and start shrinking.

BolexForSoup,
BolexForSoup avatar

It is slowing down. I would do some research into the extensive publications out there about this topic. We have been studying it for probably a solid century at this point and unlike most social talking points, it’s pretty easy to look at the math/findings and come to reasonable conclusions. You’re kind of leaning into the “child free“ rhetoric, more specifically the anti-natalist pocket of that world. Nothing wrong with not wanting kids but the people who are very vocal about that stuff and congregate on online communities basically act as if we’re all going to run out of food and water tomorrow.

BraveSirZaphod,
BraveSirZaphod avatar

Well, the earth isn't a closed finite system for starters (there's a continuous input of 173,000 terawatts of power), so there's that. Resource and land utilization have become dramatically more efficient over the last several hundred years, and there's no shortage of inhabitable land, so there's no immediate limiting factors, particularly if technological development continues.

Carbon production is an obvious elephant in the room, but even if you stop population growth today, there's still a very large problem that must be solved by radically changing our energy systems. Limiting population growth helps a bit, but it's not anything close to a sufficient solution.

The fact of the matter is that it's not so much that there's some obvious limit of resources that we're hitting in so much as the amusing truth that, if you give people a generally decent life and the ability to regulate when they have children, most people don't actually want that many. That's the primary thing behind declining population growth, and you observe it in essentially every country that becomes economically advanced (relatively speaking).

While I'm at it, capitalism as a general model doesn't require infinite population growth either, only some continuous economic growth, which can come from technological advancements, new product categories, changing interests, or yes, more consumers. Given that a non-trivial chunk of the global population are still trapped in subsistence farming, there's no shortage of economic opportunity.

Edit: Things like welfare for the elderly are much more damaged by population declines though, it should be said.

IWantToFuckSpez,

Depends if the economy can cope with the shrinking labor force and demand. And who is going to take care of all these old people. Unless we have automated a large part of our economy by then either we’d be fucked or the developing nations will be exploited even harder.

gandalf_der_12te,
  • automate
  • cut down the bullshit jobs
  • ?
  • profit for the people
blanketswithsmallpox,

African overpopulation was seriously overweighted back when people were talking about global warming in the 00s.

It’s never been an issue we didn’t have solutions for.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMo3nZHVrZ4

NoneOfUrBusiness,

It's not for countries with shrinking populations. The most sustainable model is a roughly constant population, which we're going to reach sometime within the next 50 years. A shrinking population means an aging population, which comes with its own host of issues (see: Japan and Korea).

Fermion,

There’s no fda approved male birth control because everything they’ve tried to specifically target fertility has other unacceptable side effects.

So view this as a canary in a coal mine scenario. This is one aspect of health that’s easy to measure, but without further study we cannot assume that there aren’t other more severe health complications associated with exposure to pesticides.

HorseWithNoName,

That’s funny since there’s countless negative side effects to female birth control

Fafner,
@Fafner@yiffit.net avatar

That saves me a shitload on a vasectomy.

bernieecclestoned,

Just drink Roundup!

FrigidAphelion,

deleted_by_author

    •
    spamfajitas,

    Another round of Roundup?

    Sir_Kevin,
    @Sir_Kevin@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

    Vasectomies are actually pretty inexpensive.

    ASaltPepper,

    Big regrets not washing those blueberries before eating them now.

    andrew,
    @andrew@lemmy.stuart.fun avatar

    Depends on whether you want kids though. Free birth control, just eat more pesticides by never washing your produce!

    ASaltPepper,

    Can’t wait to see someone say.

    Oh I don’t need a condom I ate some unwashed raspberries earlier

    Aussiemandeus,
    @Aussiemandeus@aussie.zone avatar

    Well shit, what can we do?

    Organic food only maybe

    jmcs,

    That’s one solution, but even being more careful with what pesticides are used would help in this case (though it would still be devastating for the insect population and will come back to bite us in other ways)

    SelfAwareCoder,

    Organic food typically has more pesticides, since gmos are often attempting to remove the need for pesticides

    HeartyBeast,
    HeartyBeast avatar

    This depends very much on the country you are in - perhaps that's the way it works in the US. But in the UK Soil Association standards limits the kin dof permissable pesitcides and how they are used quite strictly: https://www.soilassociation.org/media/23378/gb-farming-growing.pdf - see page 63 onward

    el_twitto,

    Source?

    wildginger,

    Any farmer? Including me?

    Organic is nebulous, first off. But depending on your region, the organic label just makes some specific pesticides off limits. Which means we over apply the stuff we can use.

    There isnt a modern produce company on the planet who doesnt use pesticides. You cant compete otherwise. Only pesticide free foods are locally grown by very very very small gardens and farms.

    Jajcus,

    Also organic farming relies on old types of pesticides instead of the modern ones which are designed to be more effective and safe.

    steal_your_face,
    @steal_your_face@lemmy.ml avatar

    Have a source for this?

    mihnt,
    @mihnt@lemmy.world avatar

    They still use pesticides growing organic food.

    el_twitto,

    Source?

    clockwork_octopus,

    Jesus, dude, just search for it yourself, it’s not that difficult

    organic doesn’t mean pesticide free

    MindSkipperBro12,

    He made the claim, he must back it up.

    mihnt,
    @mihnt@lemmy.world avatar

    I think everyone has it covered for me. Besides it being common sense.

    quindraco,

    You want a source on the definition of organic food? That’s tough, since there’s no one standard definition - different people mean different things by the term.

    Here is a source for organic foods being defined largely by avoiding synthetic substances. That means all “natural” or non-synthetic pesticides would be allowed and hence expected. Of course, I can find you another source with a competing definition.

    Ultimately, because “organic” means whatever the speaker wants it to mean at the time, it’s impossible to really have a rational discussion about whether or not organic farms use pesticides.

    BolexForSoup, (edited )
    BolexForSoup avatar

    Just like one can’t assume no pesticides because it’s “organic,” one also can’t assume all organic growing involves pesticides. Your comment is a bit ambiguous so just want to make it clear to folks that It’s entirely case by case.

    Basically organic farms can use pesticides.

    bluGill,
    bluGill avatar

    Conventional farms do not have to use pesticides as well.

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