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Falling sperm counts, declining egg quality, and endocrine disruptors

500 points by vincentmarle 6y ago

vincentmarle 6y ago
> Store food in glass containers, not plastic. Above all, don’t microwave foods in plastic or with plastic wrap on top. Avoid pesticides. Buy organic produce if possible. Avoid tobacco or marijuana. Use a cotton or linen shower curtain, not one made of vinyl. Don’t use air fresheners. Prevent dust buildup. Vet consumer products you use with an online guide like that of the Environmental Working Group. I really want to do this, but it seems impossibly hard. For example, almost all the food I buy is in plastic containers.
- bloak 6y ago
  So much "plastic" packaging nowadays (in the UK) is labelled with "Do not recycle" but no indication of what it's made of. This has annoyed me from an environmental point of view, but probably one should look at it from a health point of view, too. Perhaps those items are made from a material that the manufacturers know has potential health implications and that's why they're carefully not saying what it is? Perhaps the law should require proper labelling of packaging material that is in contact with food just like it requires food ingredients to be listed. If manufacturers were to lobby hard against such a rule, what might we conclude from that?
  - vkou 6y ago
    > Perhaps those items are made from a material that the manufacturers know has potential health implications and that's why they're carefully not saying what it is? Unlikely. It's more likely that they don't know, because they didn't look too hard. The reason it's not recyclable has nothing to do with that, though. It's not recyclable because plastic recycling is very difficult, many plastics can't be recycled, and of those that can, any contaminants will ruin an entire batch. Food is an example of such a contaminant.
    - WalterGR 6y ago
      any contaminants will ruin an entire batch. Food is an example of such a contaminant. This is a myth.
      - WalterGR 6y ago
        (It’s too late to edit my comment, but to be clear, food is a contaminant - it’s a myth that any amount of contaminant will ruin a batch...)
  - froh 6y ago
    NPR recently collected some history lots of plastics got some recycling symbols even though most plastics are not recycled for economic reasons: plastics have to be unmixed for true recycling. Most food packaging is landfill. https://www.npr.org/2020/09/11/897692090/how-big-oil-misled-the-public-into-believing-plastic-would-be-recycled https://www.npr.org/2020/09/11/897692090/how-big-oil-misled-...
    - fy20 6y ago
      The symbol with three arrows in a triangle and a code does not mean an item is recyclable. The official name is a Resin Identification Code. It lets you identify what material an item is made of, but it does not say whether it can be recycled or not, as that varies depending on local facilities. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resin_identification_code https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resin_identification_code
      - froh 6y ago
        TIL resin identification code. Edit: the original stated purpose, according to the linked wikipedia page, was: facilitate recycling... And if it actually will be recycled depends not only on the facility but also on the cost of doing what needs to be done (for separation and transport), and the possibility of what can be done (laminates). However these constraints are not communicated clearly. I'm 52 years old, I live in Germany, where we "recycle" for ages, about 30 years now, and we tell our kids and grannies and everybody in between to separate the trash because "recycling", and we see benches and other sturdy plastics items "made from trash" and still, only 17% of the collected packaging trash is reliably recycled, while the recycling of other plastics (toys, vehicle parts, any plastics that are not packaging) is also intransparent. https://bmbf-plastik.de/en/publication/plastic-atlas-2019-facts-and-figures-about-world-synthetic-polmers https://bmbf-plastik.de/en/publication/plastic-atlas-2019-fa... https://www.tagesschau.de/faktenfinder/kurzerklaert/kurzerklaert-recycling-101.html https://www.tagesschau.de/faktenfinder/kurzerklaert/kurzerkl...
- nomoreusernames 6y ago
  why do you want to reproduce? whats the point of forcing people to be born without their consent? whats wrong with nonexistence? is it not cruel to force people to become born and have to face the horrors of this place and then die and have all their loved ones die? i still dont get it to be honest. i mean i do, but i dont. but yeah to add to your list, dont partake in eating polarbears everytime a male in your village becomes of hunting age.
  - nathias 6y ago
    How about all the people you're preventing to be born without their consent? Surely you see how idiotic this argument is from the other side?
  - alfiedotwtf 6y ago
    > forcing people to be born without their consent How could someone consent to be born?
    - wombatpm 6y ago
      I was taught that a zygote was just gamates way of making more gamates.
    - Nasrudith 6y ago
      How can they even be forced when they don't exist for that matter?
  - heyoni 6y ago
    What’s the argument here? Consent doesn’t really exist until the deed is done and someone is born…and although death is inevitable, it’s also a very small part of one’s life.
  - krageon 6y ago
    This point of view is self-exterminating, which is why having it is dumb.
- forgotmypw17 6y ago
  It's not easy, almost impossible, to do overnight. Try it one thing or habit at a time. Single out one thing which is harmful, and commit to finding and integrating a substitute. Also, remember "cleaning" products besides a select few like Bronner's have the same type of crap in them. "Eco-friendly" ones like Seventh Gen and Meyer's are bullshit if you look at the ingredients list. Let's all take a moment to consider how blessed we are to have those ingredients list, by the way.
- jimbob45 6y ago
  Yeah this is my issue. I have to drink bottled water for water quality reasons. How am I supposed to avoid plastic there?
  - robin_reala 6y ago
    Filtered water? Sure, the filter cartridges are plastic, but I’d guess that you’d reduce your plastic usage in general.
  - atq2119 6y ago
    This is very much a cultural thing. Over here, you can easily get bottled water in glass bottles. The delivery services will pick up your tray with empty bottles to be reused. That's reuse after cleaning, not recycling!
    - hef19898 6y ago
      Europe, I guess? I had a talk late last year with a local brewery (traditinal bavarian one, family operated since the 1400s). And apparently everyone, especially Coca Cola, is going for glass right now. To the point reusable glass bottles are an actual bottle neck for them. Mind you, depsite the Covid caused demand drop. That was quite an interesting fun fact for me.
  - dheera 6y ago
    Couple of options: (a) I used to live in Malaysia where tap water wasn't drinkable as-is, but filtering and boiling made it drinkable and tasted just fine. Hot water dispensers are pretty standard to have in most Asian homes; just put the water through a filtering pitcher before pouring into the hot water dispenser. (b) Subscribe to those 5-gallon big blue bottles and a dispenser. They get actually reused instead of downcycled.
    - inter_netuser 6y ago
      Blue plastic bottles leach endocrine disruptors, either BPA or BP-S.
  - 6y ago
- XiJInPaddington 6y ago
  Because its the same thing as a person setting your house on fire then advising you not to breathe in the smoke. Advice like telling people we are drowning in plastic because we don't recycle, telling people with no access to public transportation to minimize the use of cars, telling people with no access to healthcare to take care of their bodies, telling people that grew up in a glorified prison they call public schools to get more education. They flood the world with plastic to the point where people effectively have no other option than use plastic then tell people to not use plastic. It's funny how if people say the solution to income inequality is to execute billionaires we would never seriously entertain that thought, we would immediately know that is an absurd solution, yet when people say guys choose not to use plastic we stop and consider it as if it is a viable solution for ordinary people and not callously asinine advise. It is no wonder there is so much rage in the Western world when the elites present such ridiculous solutions to problems they themselves brought into existence and expect us to act like they are priests endowed with God's personal blessing.
  - loa_in_ 6y ago
    Who is "they"?
    - silexia 6y ago
      It is "we". Almost all people I know will make selfish decisions that harm others for their own advantage. It seems to be simply human nature.
      - MisterTea 6y ago
        > It seems to be simply nature. FTFY. It's all about survival. Humans are animals not much different than a deer, lion or whatever. A deer will run away from something it doesn't know where a lion will attack/kill anything it doesn't know. Just like the stereotypical "git off my land" character of a country bumpkin. I mean, how do you feel when you see a stranger walking on your property? Same thing. I always laugh when people say they feel close with nature. Um, hello! You ARE nature. The human brain just overlaid a thick layer of self awareness/logic/reasoning/emotion to the lower level animal bits. So instead of pissing on trees we instead draw lines on paper called borders and property lines. And we still live in trees, just dead ones turned into boxes called homes. For thousands of years we struggled like any other animal to survive. If you had food you made sure no one takes it. If you found a safe place to sleep you dint want to share it. If a stranger wanders into your territory, chase or kill them, they are a threat. If you were a male you had to prove your worthiness to a female by fighting or peacocking (some things never change...) etc. Oh and we smell just as bad. The stink of a locker room or unkempt home is no different then the stink of a farm or zoo. You're a smelly hairless great ape. Deal with it.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- nostromo 6y ago
  It’s interesting they call out vinyl shower curtains but not vinyl and polyester clothing, which we wear on our bodies all day. Even most cotton shirts and jeans tend to be a blend with synthetic plastic fibers because it stretches and breaths better.
  - dehrmann 6y ago
    Or carpet.
  - vladvasiliu 6y ago
    I think there's two issues. The first is that I recall the shower curtain problem was related to the heat / steam floating around in the shower which facilitated shedding of particles and also ingestion. Having the "plastic" clothing just on the body may be less bad. Also, and more importantly, I think people who are conscious about those things tend to wear less plastic fibers but won't necessarily think about the shower curtain. For example, except for full on technical sportswear (think biking shorts), I never wear polyester or other synthetic fibers in clothing that goes directly on my skin. I used to avoid it because, for the most part, I've found that polyester is less breathable, tends to stick a lot, etc. I try as much as possible (I check the labels) to stick to cotton / linen (for the summer) / wool (for the winter). Now, the whole "plastics are bad" thing doesn't really push me to reevaluate my choice.
  - eznzt 6y ago
    > Even most cotton shirts and jeans tend to be a blend with synthetic plastic fibers because it stretches and breaths better. Just look at the labels...
  - cameldrv 6y ago
    I'm not sure you should specifically be worried about vinyl shower curtains, but vinyl is a specific concern, because to get the form of vinyl that's soft and pliable, the vinyl is mixed about 50/50 with phthalates that are known endocrine disruptors. That said, phthalates are used in tons of stuff, and it's not fully clear to me which sources are the most important. I've replaced my soap/shampoo/shaving creams with phthalate free versions. It's also present though in basically all plastic tubing, which is known to leach phthalates and is used very extensively in food production machinery.
- m_eiman 6y ago
  There's a big difference in the amount of leakage from the plastics when it's cold vs when it's heated - so a good step is to put whatever you're heating on a plate before you put it in the microwave (or oven, or…), rather than heating it in the plastic it came in.
  - segfaultbuserr 6y ago
    Also, avoid using dishwasher and dryer. But some types of plastic cookware is just a pain to clean up. The only solution is avoid buying any plastic cookware or food container completely. Unheated food-grade plastic is generally okay, but when exposed to heat or UV light, you have a big problem. This paper is worth reading [0], according to their experiment, almost all commercially available plastic products—independent of the type of resin, product, or retail source—leached chemicals after being exposed to UV lights or heat. [0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3222987/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3222987/
  - hef19898 6y ago
    Isn't that common sense anyway? Especially the packaging it came with?
    - audunw 6y ago
      Lots of plastic containers for left over food claims to be microwave friendly. There are several pre-made food products on the market with plastic containers that instructs you to cook them in microwave with the plastic packaging still on. One product I tried recently even had a little tab on the plastic wrapper that would start whistling when the food was done. I think I tried it that one time. I don't usually buy things like that.
- globular-toast 6y ago
  My instincts have told me not to do any of this. All my life I've seen people microwaving stuff in plastic containers. I find it repulsive. I don't even own a microwave. I keep leftovers in bowls and reheat it in the oven or in a saucepan. I've always hated everything plastic really. And anything that decreases air quality. How people can spray tiny droplets of god knows what into the air and subsequently breathe then in is beyond me.
- krageon 6y ago
  It's reasonable to work on the factors that you can easily influence. Once you've tackled those, you can see what else you can still fix. It doesn't need to be all or nothing.
- spodek 6y ago
  > I really want to do this, but it seems impossibly hard. For example, almost all the food I buy is in plastic containers. Hacker News: colonizing to Mars is straightforward and natural. Buying vegetables fresh or organizing a farmers market is impossibly hard and goes against human nature.
- lm28469 6y ago
  > For example, almost all the food I buy is in plastic containers. I stopped buying these a while ago. Buy fresh veggies, classic pasta/rice/lentils or whatever you fancy, meat from the butcher if you eat meat, I skip anything I can't identify or anything that I couldn't make myself at home with regular ingredients. It's super restrictive but you get rid of literally 99% of junk food. You are what you eat, quite literally
  - graeme 6y ago
    Not that simple. The paper your butcher uses also has plastic most likely. Most paper products do these days. You nonetheless minimize exposure that way to be clear.
- goatcode 6y ago
  It's difficult to do it all at once. Taking little steps might help: instead of using plastic tupperware, use glass; instead of buying beans in a can, buy dry beans; balcony garden? Sure! Even if some things are impossible to do, it's imo best to not pile on top of those problems issues that aren't impossible to solve.
  - boatsie 6y ago
    Even dry beans come in a plastic bag...
    - goatcode 6y ago
      If so, and while microplastics may still be an issue, leeching due to wet beans being in contact with the plastic lining of their cans is not. Along the same lines as my original general message: a bit at a time.
- soheil 6y ago
  What part of taking out the food you buy out of its plastic container before microwaving it is impossibly hard?
haspoken 6y ago
http://archive.is/gwyni http://archive.is/gwyni
refurb 6y ago
As a scientist I hate articles like this. Apparently putting the word “may” in the title allows one to pontificate wildly about what might be the cause of falling sperm rates and other reproductive trends. Little to no comments about other possible causes, no data that shows a relationship between “endocrine disruptors” and sperm counts, no comments about levels of these chemicals in the population or what levels they become active at. After reading the article all I can firmly conclude is: 1) reproductive changes are happening, 2) endocrine disruptors are suspected, but there is no direct evidence. Not very helpful.
- vmception 6y ago
  My publicist used to do this all the time. We'd even go as far as ghostwriting the articles ourselves. This is an advertisement for the epidemiologist's book, which may contain the depth of information you are looking for.
  - dehrmann 6y ago
    You might be right. > Now Swan, an epidemiologist at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York, has written a book, “Count Down,” that will be published on Tuesday and sounds a warning bell. And it's a book that just happens to be coming out this week. In the opinion column.
    - vmception 6y ago
      Yeah, there is nothing “organic” We would even get listicles published where our service was like third or even tenth in the listicles So if I was this author, and I imagined people wanted to learn more about “endocrine disruptors”, my book would be third in the list of books about endocrine disruptors on someone’s blog or respected site. These arent necessarily paid for so I guess you dont need it to say its advertisement, the authors are just in the publicist’s network The beauty of listicles and even articles like this one is that its not even about engagement. Like, sure your google results are going to look phenomenal but that just disarms paranoid people you date that will search your name, the article still is not even seeking organic hoards of people yet. Being mentioned along side competitors or elusive people in your field is way more powerful and makes it easier to open a dialogue with them. Like “oh hey we’re both recognized lets go on msnbc together”
dragosmocrii 6y ago
Damn, having watched Children of Men recently, this article is chilling
- King-Aaron 6y ago
  Upvote for one of the (in my opinion) best movies of our time
- federona 6y ago
  The biggest problem we have is we keep making things that we have no idea of the consequences and then to get rid of them takes a while because industry says no we can't do this, there will be too much economic damage. Same with all environmental issues, the speed of damage is much faster than the ability to control the economics created as a result. As a result unless something is shown to be immediately fatal, it's hard to prove without a doubt it's fatal and often the damage done is cumulative and distributed across the whole industry. There is no easy solution to this.
- m_eiman 6y ago
  That movie is terribly depressing, and terribly good.
sneak 6y ago
Related: http://vhemt.org/ http://vhemt.org/ (one of the oldest websites on this here internet, as well.)
- heyoni 6y ago
  The point of that movement is to restore balance to earth, but what’s the value in doing so if no one is around to appreciate it? There’s really no difference one way or the other; it’s just a sphere in the universe.
  - scbrg 6y ago
    The biosphere consists of more individuals than just humans. The argument is that humans, specifically, do quite a lot more harm than good to the rest of earth's population. With perhaps a few exceptions, most other species would be much better off without us.
    - adrianN 6y ago
      Humans are with high probability the only chance Earth's ecosystem has of surviving the death of the Sun.
hilbert42 6y ago
It would be helpful if we knew eactly what these endocrine-disrupting chemicals were. As is usually the case with such reports, this article is short on specifics. Over the years there have many reports from cleaners to plasticizers, phthalates, and various other chemicals as endocrine disruptors but no one has put a sufficient measure on the problem so that we can move foreword - put regulations in place, etc. As the article points out, what is so problematic is that many of the chemicals that are under suspicion are ubiquitous and not easily avoided. I consider it important that we act quickly for not only public health reasons but also the fact that we're living in an increasingly chemical-phobic society and worrying the public without solid evidence isn't helpful to anybody. We need need more research on this urgently. Afterthought: it is essential that we have solid evidence ASAP as billions of dollars are tied up in the plastics industry. Plastics already cause environmental problems (and I constantly curse the fact that I have to get rid of so much waste plastic) but there's no point deliberately alienating the plastics industry without good cause.
- m_eiman 6y ago
  There are lists available, e.g. https://edlists.org/ https://edlists.org/ When the EU was debating the REACH regulations there was a big push to move to a "don't sell or produce it until you can prove it's safe" stance, but AFAIK it was significantly watered down before an agreement was reached. https://ec.europa.eu/environment/chemicals/reach/reach_en.htm https://ec.europa.eu/environment/chemicals/reach/reach_en.ht... Then there's the problem of "chemical cocktails", where combinations of chemicals are more dangerous than each chemical by itself; this gets a lot of media space, but is even harder to research than individual chemicals since just about everything gets mixed up in various concentrations in nature.
  - MattGaiser 6y ago
    Is there a reason we can't just dump tons of mice into different sets and combos of chemicals and see what happens?
    - sdenton4 6y ago
o_p 6y ago
Why so pessimist? One plastic a day keeps the vasectomy away
bpodgursky 6y ago
Would it be... unreasonable... to point out that the fall in sperm quality, egg quality, and overall hormonal disruption is happening concurrent with a blurring of overall gender identification, predominantly in the youngest generation? Identification as trans or other non-binary status is incredibly high among the gen-z cohort. Might be unrelated social upheaval, but would anyone really be surprised if we weren't accidentally hormonally poisoning children at the same time they are developing their own gender identities?
- konjin 6y ago
  You're only allowed to write vague doomsday articles about things that people like to hate. It's pretty funny that you're downvoted for using exactly the same type of vague fear mongering that the article does but because you did it towards unacceptable targets peoples incredulity kicked in. I wish people would use their ability to think in all cases, not just when they disagree with the conclusion. And if you're about to flag and downvote this because you think I'm being *ist, you are exactly the problem since I did nothing of the sort.
- inglor_cz 6y ago
  I am dismayed, but not entirely surprised, that you are getting downvoted for this. If we really have hormonal disruption of the ecosystem strong enough that alligators have problems breeding, why wouldn't it influence human behavior? Hormones influence human behavior all the time, so if there is a change in the balance, there should be a change in the behavior patterns. This is a testable hypothesis and should not be discarded automatically without being tested, especially by HN forists who are expected to be, on average, more friendly towards critical thinking and less towards dogmatism.
- arp242 6y ago
  I don't think Caitlyn Jenner is gen-Z, or The Wachowskis. I mean, maybe there is a link? It's not inconceivable I suppose, but I am not aware of any evidence, and purely comparing numbers of people is not a very good way of going about this. You will find there are a lot more gay people in the United States than in, say, Saudi Arabia too. But that doesn't mean there are environmental factors in the US that make people gay: they just don't feel free to declare themselves as such in SA because you will get in to trouble.
inter_netuser 6y ago
This affects not only humans, but the entire ecosystems. This disruption is happening right now, and is the cause of the die off of many species. It's a true emergency. TODAY.
- techbio 6y ago
  Preservation of state is not a feature of evolution, and as elegant and informative a theory as it may be, it has as long a history of negative selection as of positive survival.
  - inter_netuser 6y ago
    Are you condoning the destruction of our earth for short term profits?
    - techbio 6y ago
      I cannot believe you think my opinion is going to alter the profit motive, but no, for what it's worth, I am not condoning the destruction of the earth. I'm describing a way to think about our influence on the environment that is most likely to actually happen.
GameOfKnowing 6y ago
Trans community is way ahead of you, bud...
Flow 6y ago
Related: "Chemicals in plastics damage babies' brains and must be banned immediately (cnn.com)" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26211605 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26211605
- terse_malvolio 6y ago
  If only plastic utensils and other plastic one-use expendables had never been taken as good idea in the first place
  - Flow 6y ago
    I think many health problems are related to not a few single causes, but to a cocktail of problems, some chemical, other purely lifestyle(sleep, food, exercise). It's humbling how much AND little we know about processes in the body. Just read the article and comments some days ago about antidepressants. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26197140 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26197140
- slipper 6y ago
  Except most babies seem to be fine, so maybe the fear is overblown? I think it should be kept in check, as it seems all sorts of nasty stuff can be mixed into plastic. But many plastics seem to be fine. There is also poisonous stuff in plants, including wood.
  - AuryGlenz 6y ago
    I mean, people probably said the same thing about leaded gasoline. Just because things are “fine” doesn’t mean they’re ideal.
jonplackett 6y ago
As someone who has had to do IVF for our child and go through the challenge of figuring our what to do to try and improve sperm quality, I can tell you once you start looking into it, basically everything about modern life is bad for sperm. Heat, radiation, plastic, micro plastics, soya, tap water, Teflon, antibacterial soap, underpants, western diet. It’s a perfect storm. If you’re going though it though I offer a ray of hope that it was possible to sufficiently avoid these things, at least temporarily, and it made a very large difference (4X better within 6 months) and resulted in a now 3 year old child.
- mpfundstein 6y ago
  i dont know. i did all of the bad stuff and surely wasnt a very health aware person (smoking, drinking, weed, late nights, slight overweight, city life) but got my wife pregnant within one period cycle and we did that two times (two kids). its probably a factor. but very nice to hear that it worked out for you. most have been a stressful period
  - jonplackett 6y ago
    Well, lucky you I guess. For some of us it’s a harder road and requires more work. For me, cutting out those things did make a difference on multiple tests that trended up as I cut these things out. All of the above have varying degrees of evidence to support that they affect sperm. The problem is that you’re on a tight deadline and have no time to isolate your variables. Your only option is to go 100% on everything.
- WA 6y ago
  Soy isn't that easy: https://www.health.harvard.edu/newsletter_article/Medical-memo-Soy-and-sperm https://www.health.harvard.edu/newsletter_article/Medical-me... There was one study with 99 participants. A counter argument is Asia, where men eat a lot more soy and don't have reduced sperm count.
  - chaostheory 6y ago
    Isn't the difference in Asia because they eat less processed soy compared to the US and EU?
RGamma 6y ago
The planet is ridding itself of its disease, beautiful.
- dang 6y ago
  Please don't do this here.
- Darmody 6y ago
  If you consider humans a disease, would you be ok with someone killing you? Because that's what you do to a disease, you get rid of it.
  - RGamma 6y ago
    I'm thinking in terms of an organism going against its own ecosystem. Imagine if a new species of killer ant evolved that has no natural predators, procreates quickly and eats up its habitat. For a short while it's going to be the greatest species in its ecosystem... Of course we likely wouldn't see such an ant because it would have wiped itself out by resource exhaustion unless it adapted (or e.g. a natural predator came about). An ant couldn't do much about its biological makeup or its instincts and so nature would run its course; it lacks self-awareness and general intelligence. Now imagine humanity, posessing these traits, would recognize that it itself is the killer ant and would organize itself with their great scientific and economic prowess and with the same fervor it discusses about banalities during this - historically speaking - mild pandemic (mild in the sense that coronavirus is not the black death, not mild in the sense that so many people died unnecessarily due to our own shortcomings) to not eat their habitat. Or it would stop constantly working against its self-imposed conflicting incentives in poltics or the economy. Or it would stop trapping hundreds of millions of people in self-serving mind cages optimizing for metrics that make no sense and pondering about how to best mind control their userbase. Or it would stop allocating so many resources (money) towards fads, consumption crap and get-rich-quick schemes. The pandemic forced our hands, it couldn't be kicked down the road for some later time (an excellent motivator!) and so we adapted; unfortunately biosphere degradation as a whole does not yet, which is why our reaction is so sluggish and overconsumption or pollution are still mostly seen as some optional or cosmetic problem (but at least they're seen, I guess). And no, many solutions offered by businesses are none: replacing hundreds of millions of cars with hundreds of millions of other cars? Replacing plastic straws in fast food restaurants with paper ones while the food served there is subsidized by an agricultural industry with ridiculous land use (just look at current satellite maps... holy crap). The patient earth is ill and treating overconsumption with another (more nicely dressed) form of overconsumption is symptomatic at best and a distraction. If you're a smoker the only thing you can do to truly cure the ailments is to fix the root cause and stop smoking, not take pills to mask the symptoms. I hope one of these days a critical mass realizes that modern manufactured-demand capitalism has run its course or we're in for a bad time (the more sensitive individuals already are). But I suppose that would entail realizing that so many of us dependent on it have been living a lie. /rant (not really related to parent, so sorry if you felt antagonized, but I had to let this out somewhere whew) P.S. Somewhat related to the article: I recently discovered these good looking closed aquariums called ecosphere. Turns out if you put higher organisms like shrimp in there they won't procreate due to bad environmental conditions.
deleted 6y ago
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ggreer 6y ago
> Now Swan, an epidemiologist at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York, has written a book, “Count Down,” that will be published on Tuesday and sounds a warning bell. This article is a submarine[1] for some guy’s book. 1. http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html
- forgotmypw17 6y ago
  Sure, but it is also true.
deleted 6y ago
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yudlejoza 6y ago
Pick a random essential nutrient. For instance, take zinc. Human body needs it. It needs to be taken in. You need to ensure the right food items, or the right supplements, doesn't matter. Where does that source come from? plants? animals? imported? produced? What goes into that? What's the prevalent intake level in developed countries? developing countries? what should be the right intake level? where (which parts of the world) do we have excess? where do we have deficiency? How is zinc flushed? where does it go? rivers? recycled? ends up in ocean? Keep going. And you realize there is a massive, highly complex, global zinc-supply-chain-cycle that has a crucial role in zinc ingestion in different parts of the world. And that's just one of the hundred or so nutrients. Now multiply that with all the rest of the nutrients and nutrient groups. It's a behemoth of a multi-nutrient-supply-chain-cycle! Somewhere there's tremendous waste going on. Somewhere else there's tremendous deficiency going on, resulting in, possibly idiopathic, diseases among whole groups of people. Now (the most important and the most interesting part) turn that "scientific" (observed) system into an "engineered" (planned) one! Go figure!
- hef19898 6y ago
  Or just stop, or reduce as much as possible, the amount of crap we eat? There is no reason why meat has to be that low cost. Or that we cannot cook ourselves with fresh ingredients, ideally grown and sourced locally. Nutrition, being a basic of human survival, has been sovled for millenias. We just lost it with pushing industrialized food production, of any kid, way to far over the point needed to get rid of starvation.
  - yudlejoza 6y ago
    A simpleton tree-hugger mindset will automagically solve our biggest global challenges for 8 billion people in the 21st century. After all, it "feels" like it will work for millions, so it'll end up working for billions too. And it makes you feel all comfy and angelic inside. Got it.
    - amanaplanacanal 6y ago
      The problem is having 8 billion children to begin with. I don’t think that problem is solvable.
mikkelam 6y ago
Is this really so bad? Assuming humans are hit the hardest, the planet will be better off. Obviously we wouldn't want it to kill our civilization, but for the mean time, it doesn't sound so bad with less homo sapiens
- cblconfederate 6y ago
  1. This is happening in the western world, not in places the population is growing fastest 2. It's not just less humans, it s of worse quality
  - yakshemash 6y ago
    1. The per capita environmental footprint is at least an order of magnitude, if not closer to two, higher in the western world 2. The subtext of this point is so distasteful to me that I can't figure out how to engage with it. How do you measure the quality of a human?
    - cblconfederate 6y ago
      I mean health-wise, as the article says. You measure it with objective measures. I m not sure why it s distasteful to you?
    - Rompect 6y ago
      > How do you measure the quality of a human Net worth obviously. Riffraff are mostly worthless creatures.
  - arrayjumper 6y ago
    > 2. It's not just less humans, it s of worse quality what do you mean by this? that humans not of the western world are "lower quality"?
    - 4gotunameagain 6y ago
      I assumed that this characterization in this context meant "less capable to protect Earth/environment/humanity", which is not too controversial given the inverse correlation between average education level and birthrates
NIGGERISH 6y ago
“Climate change is one exception“ Lol every time...
NIGGERISH 6y ago
“Climate change is one exception“ Lol... Every damn time.
cortexio 6y ago
Cant read the article because it's behind a stupid paywall, posts like that should be banned because it's basically a commercial. Anyway, i think the falling sperm counts is probably from being inside all the time, lack of physical exercise and overdose on dopamine.
cblconfederate 6y ago
And what are the behavioral effects of such large physiological changes en masse? Surely neurochemical changes will manifest everywhere, from mental health to politics
- mekkkkkk 6y ago
  Shorter attention spans, more lethargy, lower overall intelligence. You could point at a number of cultural and political developments over the last decades and argue that these neurochemical changes could be a contributing factor. However, it must be pretty much impossible to know for sure. The supposed effects are too intangible and the compounds are too pervasive. We can only speculate.
  - cblconfederate 6y ago
    This might well be true, and there may be a measurable correlation if someone is willing to investigate it. However i m not sure what s the way forward: policies to reverse this health crisis, or adapt politics to this new reality?
    - mekkkkkk 6y ago
      If the causality is correct, then this "new" reality is already here. Hence, adaptation is too currently happening. Big policy changes to curb plastic use is only a favor for our grandkids.
esja 6y ago
Can these endocrine disruptors also contribute to gender dysphoria?
- fogihujy 6y ago
  It sounds plausible that anything with the ability to disturb hormone production could also indirectly affect things like sexuality and one's gender identity. A quick googling suggests it has been suggested before, and that it's a highly controversial topic as it indicates that something is inherently wrong with being transgender. At best, it's something that needs much more research before any conclusions can be drawn.
  - zug_zug 6y ago
    As somebody with a friend who has gender stuff going on, I can tell you the friend just wants an honest answer out of science and couldn't care less about indirect implications.
    - fogihujy 6y ago
      It doesn't affect me at all either, but I'd still be cautious before making any claims hinting that being trans is a medical condition -- if it does indeed turn out to be related, then it could turn a lot of people's lives upside down.
      - pb7 6y ago
        > being trans is a medical condition Curious, what else is it if not that? Eczema is also a medical condition too but we don't shame people for having it. Medical conditions shouldn't carry the implication that you're a broken person as a result of it.
        zug_zug 6y ago
        Terminology is super important. Obviously everything about a person is a biological fact, but "medical condition" implies a certain severity and negativity. It's sort of like asking if being shorter than 6' a medical condition. Or if being unattractive is a medical condition. Obviously not in the common parlance, and anybody who wanted to classify it as such would be seen as a real agitator. I suppose for people who experience full gender dysphoria and want to transition that's probably necessary for sake of insurance coverage. But I think most people who don't feel either gender norm feels right for them (e.g. "genderqueer") prefer not to have a medical label on it.
protoman3000 6y ago
On this topic I can recommend the dystopian movie “Children of Men”. It’s about modern world of basically our time where nobody can get children and what issues arise.
- akiselev 6y ago
  Off topic tangent: "Children of Men" is also a great litmus test for search engines. Searching for "movie without babies" in Google yields "Children of Men" as the first result (and has since before 2010). Other search engines generally return movies about babies and stuff like that
ecmascript 6y ago
Some time ago I realized that modern life wasn't that good for your health so last year I bought a farm on the country side with my gf and now we are trying to grow our own food and make our way into a more self-sustainable life.
- fogihujy 6y ago
  My family and I did the same a few years ago. I wholeheartedly recommend it.
- DC1350 6y ago
  Why do you think the solution is farm life and not something more primitive?
- ThisIsTheWay 6y ago
  I'm interested in this. Care to share more about how you learned? How do you handle water collection, filtration, and distribution? What types of fertilizers are you using to improve the nutrients in your growing soil? What crops are you growing, and are you managing livestock?
CryptoPunk 6y ago
I wonder if the divergence between Asian and Western countries in sperm count is due to cultural reasons. Maybe the fall of traditional culture in the West, and all the allowances it made for male behavior, has had psychological effects that have something to do with it. Plastics are massively used in Asia, which is why I speculate the cause could be psychological as opposed to chemical.
tracker1 6y ago
Generations of low dietary fat, franken-foods and just eating garbage. Plastics, it's all part of it.
FriendlyNormie 6y ago
Are any of you imbeciles who are suddenly pretending to care so much about this issue humble enough to admit that you’re stupid cunts for mocking Alex Jones for being the only person to point this out over the past fifteen years? Now no one will take the issue seriously despite a news outlet whose dick you DO suck reporting on it because everyone’s already been conditioned through your past ridicule to fear being associated with woo woo man if they take this seriously. Good job you fucking absolute retarded faggots.
gadders 6y ago
something something Alex Jones something something //edit// This is semi-facetious, but he did mention something similar in his, er, unique fashion.
- barbacoa 6y ago
  He also would rant about jeffrey epstein years before the media caught on.
  - gadders 6y ago
    Sounds like Johnny Rotten and Jimmy Savile: https://louderthanwar.com/interesting-1978-clip-of-johnny-rotten-warning-about-jimmy-savile/ https://louderthanwar.com/interesting-1978-clip-of-johnny-ro...
tubularhells 6y ago
Jokes on you, my sperm count fell 100% three years ago, and I like it that way.
- simonebrunozzi 6y ago
  How comes? A disease, a condition, or what?
  - thrwyoilarticle 6y ago
    I think OP is hinting at a vasectomy.
    - cblconfederate 6y ago
      technically not a drop in sperm count
      - tubularhells 6y ago
        It objectively is. I have a paper to prove.
nemo44x 6y ago
We see similar things happening with digestive diseases between the West and Asia. Diverticulitis is pretty rare in Asia (and Africa for that matter) and fairly common in the West. But what’s interesting is that it is just as common for Asians that move to the West after about 12 years or so which rules out genetics. Additionally we are seeing it occur in younger and younger people. This was once a disease for ages 60+ and now it’s not uncommon to find it in people in their 40’s and 30’s and occasionally their 20’s now! It’s assumed the types of foods more common in a Western diet are the cause of this but there isn’t concrete proof. It’s a strong hypothesis though. It’s thought the main cause is foliage ingestion, or lack of. People in Asia and Africa eat a lot more plants which are high in fiber. So I don’t think it’s just obesity and being overweight that are the issue but how we get obese and overweight and I believe that all this, from infertility to early onset of digestive diseases are related in large part to our diets.
- esja 6y ago
  Similar effects have been seen with Multiple Sclerosis. People of the same genetic background who move to Western countries are more likely to develop MS than those who stay behind. I can’t remember the specific countries unfortunately.
godmode2019 6y ago
I don't have any data but I wonder if stuff like this will affect the gene pool. If the cause is environmental then it shouldnt have an affect. But genes are weird considering epigenetics. Almost like the the movie 'Children of men'
- souprock 6y ago
  If the cause is environmental then that means the environment changed, and environmental change causes a change in selection.
chiefalchemist 6y ago
Correct me if I'm wrong but being overweight or obese is an endocrine disruptor. Such conditions exist in what ~50%+ of USA adults. Worse there are children growing up who are effectively unhealthy from age 5 forward. Add in other disruptors (e.g., chemicals) and naturally there are going to be problems; problems despite the narrative, are not due to the healthcare system.
- amanaplanacanal 6y ago
  It wouldn’t surprise me if we discover that the exogenous disrupters are causing the high obesity rate.
  - chiefalchemist 6y ago
    Causing? Maybe. Contributing to? Probably. Toss is compromised gut bacteria (due to other environmental factors) and it all adds up. That said, drinking soda as if it's water, regularly consuming junk "food", as well as going weeks without breaking a sweat is a great foundation to build such a crisis of convergence on.
- tzone 6y ago
  In the list of: "practical suggestions" in the article, they talk about literally everything except for weight-loss and getting in shape.
- cblconfederate 6y ago
  This is not limited to US men, similar pattern everywhere in western world https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/sperm-count-dropping-in-western-world/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/sperm-count-dropp...
  - chiefalchemist 6y ago
    Well, it's the Western diet. The US created and exported so we're ahead by a decade or so. But yes, the USA isn't the only country eating itself to death. Slowly.
avsteele 6y ago
This is the most important part of the essay: Uncertainty remains, research sometimes conflicts and biological pathways aren’t always clear. There are competing theories about whether the sperm count decline is real and what might cause it and about why girls appear to be reaching puberty earlier, and it’s sometimes unclear whether an increase in male genital abnormalities reflects actual rising numbers or just better reporting. You should maintain a very low prior probability of this being true without more information. Remember correlation usually != causation https://www.gwern.net/Causality https://www.gwern.net/Causality There are a lot of other possible causes for all the these declines. (obesity and lower physical activity being only the most likely-seeming to me)
- galangalalgol 6y ago
  Obesity being a correlation might mean it is also a symptom. We already know from a couple studies that people with the same activity level and calorie intake are significantly more overweight than in the 80s. One leading hypothesis is endocrine disruptors.
  - ntsplnkv2 6y ago
    I'd be very wary of any studies that ask people to identify "activity level."
    - galangalalgol 6y ago
      That does seem the weak point. The body can conserve calories in many hard to observe ways. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1871403X15001210 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S18714...
  - klmadfejno 6y ago
    Possible, but I would tend to bet its just a high sugar and sweetener diet more than anything. Obesity is not uniform at all. In pre covid days of seeing many people, I would rarely see anyone who is obese (northeast american), but that's because I'm in an upper middle class bubble. These days I'm pretty good about avoiding heating up plastics and what not. Growing up it wasn't on our radar at all. Point I'm trying to make is plastic exposure is pretty high for all populations, whereas diet varies tremendously by social class, and the composition of it has changed significantly since the 80s.
yters 6y ago
Could all the porn consumption and masturbation be a factor? Also I have heard contraceptive use in the past can affect female fertility. There is also potential leakage of contraceptives into our water supply.
DC1350 6y ago
It’s called the globohomo agenda and they want to make you weak so you can’t fight back.
- puppable 6y ago
  I don't see what Devo has to do with this...
- NelsonMinar 6y ago
  No, the globohomo agenda is turning all the cute young men gay. Not you, from your words I can tell you're ugly.
  - DC1350 6y ago
    This comment is not appropriate for HN.
    - selimthegrim 6y ago
      It was a tongue-in-cheek response to the parent (you)
- randomopining 6y ago
  Yeah pretty much. But I don’t think it’s insidious. They just need weak people who will bow to every “pop culture” norm they create to buy the latest stuff. Strong individualists or even even keel/healthy ones will realize they don’t need much and don’t need to do much to enjoy life. Weak people need something to grasp onto to give them meaning. Muh new toys, muh new car, muh racism, muh social justice, muh politics, muh cardi b, muh $14 drinks at the bar.
dukeofdoom 6y ago
I followed this girl on youtube that built a tiny house in the mountains. She carries her own water, makes bread from wheat she mills, makes her own hummus and cabbage and eats copious amounts of each and vegetables. Hardly has phone/internet service because she lives in a mountain valley. Plays music with friends, reads and does yoga for entertainment. Surprise, surprise. You are your habits! She looks very fit and healthy. I'm not advocating for traditionalism, but more like, optimizing your habits. The simple basic, inexpensive things she does, and eats are pretty optimized for health and personal growth. Isabel's Channel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4cght8xNnI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4cght8xNnI
- hobo_mark 6y ago
  If she didn't look very fit and healthy, you would not be following her on youtube, and would not know she existed, even with the same lifestyle.
  - dukeofdoom 6y ago
    Thats true to a degree. But I'm betting many unfit people would get fit if adapting the same diet/lifestyle habits.
    - Balgair 6y ago
      Anecdata: As quarantine drags on, I've stopped eating fast-food/restaurants and only eat things that I 'make'. I'm not going to say that it's healthy food, because I like cookies and beer and burgers. But just not eating fast food resulted in ~20lbs lost. I sleep better, I'm not as exhausted in the early afternoon, and I just 'feel' better. We'll see how post-pandemic life goes, but I'm going to try to stay on this diet at least.
  - Majestic121 6y ago
    I don't know if you've ever been to the mountains[1], but if you do you'll find out most of the people living there are and look super healthy, even (especially) at an advanced age. The main difference I can see between my experience and the one of the youtube girl is that people in the mountain don't necessarily eat what would be considered healthy, but a lot of meat and animal products. It definitely deserves more actual research, but a mountain lifestyle does seem to push towards regular exercise, which in turn provides overall good health. As a singular data point, you can see from BMI comparisons that countries with mountains (Switzerland, Austria, France, Italy) fare pretty good in comparison to others: https://www.euronews.com/2019/05/09/which-country-has-the-highest-average-bmi-in-europe https://www.euronews.com/2019/05/09/which-country-has-the-hi... [1] At least the Alps
ahstilde 6y ago
https://www.givelegacy.com/ https://www.givelegacy.com/ is helping men protect their fertility.
airhead969 6y ago
I went to glass containers for food storage and transfer food out of plastic packaging as soon as possible. Precocious puberty: I had a mental health hit (near collapse) from something that happened in my mid 20's. I started dating the stepdaughter of a neighbor (upper-middle class area) who said she was 19, and she definitely seemed it by being smart, chill, age-mature, sensible, and fully-developed (Tanner V). Lo and behold: she was not 17, 16, or 15, but 12. 12! WTH? I felt awful, ashamed, and like a perv monster. Thankfully, nothing illegal progressed but it was way too close and that would've been the end of my life. The worst part was I really liked, respected, got along with, and was attracted to her. Why, human condition, why? Torture. Sigh.
- pb7 6y ago
  You confused a middle schooler for a 19 year old? Yikes.
  - airhead969 6y ago
    Confused? No. She passed herself off as that, acted, and looked the part completely. Size D. Extreme precocious puberty. You would've been fooled too, so please don't judge with perfect knowledge and 20/20 hindsight from afar if you weren't there.
    - pb7 6y ago
      > acted I have a very hard time believing a 12 year old can pass as a 19 year old in maturity. What knowledge or experience can a 12 year old offer to a mid 20s individual to appear intelligent, as you claim? > You would've been fooled too Zero chance. In my mid 20s, I already considered 19 year olds to be far too removed in life stages to consider seriously and the maturity gap between a 12 year old and an 19 year old is astronomical.
      - forgetfulness 6y ago
        Charitably, maybe our colleague here has some type of personality or even neurological disorder that would allow him to, earnestly, bond with a 12 year old as a partner rather than a child acquaintance. A disorder that he should get treated because that poses a danger to others and, eventually, himself. Given the astonishing justifications he gives I'd say his psych and he have a lot of work ahead.
mvh 6y ago
My dad (professor at University of Arizona) interviewed Shanna Swan, a scientist profiled in this article, recently. Anyone interested can find the episode here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/reproductive-health-shanna-swan/id1325288920?i=1000508545504 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/reproductive-health-sh...
- esja 6y ago
  Some of the other episodes look great as well. Thanks for sharing!
tuckerpo 6y ago
Shoddy endogenous androgen production in men is likely a function of excess adipose tissue causing higher rates of aromatization of T to estrogen Being overweight or obese makes it more difficult to lose weight and put on muscle, a feedback loop Clean diet and regular exercise goes a very long way, but nutrient deficient soil is making micro-nutrient deficiencies more difficult to resolve. Anecdotally, eating a whole foods diet consistent of high quality protein usually sourced from local farms (I'm in rural upstate NY), I still find myself needing to supplement magnesium, zinc, D3 and K2.
curation 6y ago
I think of it as evolution.
kyrieeschaton 6y ago
Please add this to the column of "things evil right wing twitter anons were investigating years beforehand", so you can update your estimates of their future credibility.
mk4p 6y ago
A friend of mine is working on a supplement that may help in this regard, at least on the female part of the equation. > There is a a very interesting substance that could also increase fertility: nicotinamide mononucleotide (NMN). https://novoslabs.com/can-nmn-supplements-restore-fertility/ https://novoslabs.com/can-nmn-supplements-restore-fertility/ (Disclaimer: I've invested in his company)
master_yoda_1 6y ago
And the great paywall
Managor 6y ago
The biggest source of endocrine disruptors are plants
Managor 6y ago
The biggest source of endocrine disruptors are plants. It's as simple as that. And they're all natural to top it all off.

500 points by vincentmarle 6y ago

> Store food in glass containers, not plastic. Above all, don’t microwave foods in plastic or with plastic wrap on top. Avoid pesticides. Buy organic produce if possible. Avoid tobacco or marijuana. Use a cotton or linen shower curtain, not one made of vinyl. Don’t use air fresheners. Prevent dust buildup. Vet consumer products you use with an online guide like that of the Environmental Working Group. I really want to do this, but it seems impossibly hard. For example, almost all the food I buy is in plastic containers.

bloak 6y ago
So much "plastic" packaging nowadays (in the UK) is labelled with "Do not recycle" but no indication of what it's made of. This has annoyed me from an environmental point of view, but probably one should look at it from a health point of view, too. Perhaps those items are made from a material that the manufacturers know has potential health implications and that's why they're carefully not saying what it is? Perhaps the law should require proper labelling of packaging material that is in contact with food just like it requires food ingredients to be listed. If manufacturers were to lobby hard against such a rule, what might we conclude from that?
- vkou 6y ago
  > Perhaps those items are made from a material that the manufacturers know has potential health implications and that's why they're carefully not saying what it is? Unlikely. It's more likely that they don't know, because they didn't look too hard. The reason it's not recyclable has nothing to do with that, though. It's not recyclable because plastic recycling is very difficult, many plastics can't be recycled, and of those that can, any contaminants will ruin an entire batch. Food is an example of such a contaminant.
  - WalterGR 6y ago
    any contaminants will ruin an entire batch. Food is an example of such a contaminant. This is a myth.
    - WalterGR 6y ago
      (It’s too late to edit my comment, but to be clear, food is a contaminant - it’s a myth that any amount of contaminant will ruin a batch...)
- froh 6y ago
  NPR recently collected some history lots of plastics got some recycling symbols even though most plastics are not recycled for economic reasons: plastics have to be unmixed for true recycling. Most food packaging is landfill. https://www.npr.org/2020/09/11/897692090/how-big-oil-misled-the-public-into-believing-plastic-would-be-recycled https://www.npr.org/2020/09/11/897692090/how-big-oil-misled-...
  - fy20 6y ago
    The symbol with three arrows in a triangle and a code does not mean an item is recyclable. The official name is a Resin Identification Code. It lets you identify what material an item is made of, but it does not say whether it can be recycled or not, as that varies depending on local facilities. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resin_identification_code https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resin_identification_code
    - froh 6y ago
      TIL resin identification code. Edit: the original stated purpose, according to the linked wikipedia page, was: facilitate recycling... And if it actually will be recycled depends not only on the facility but also on the cost of doing what needs to be done (for separation and transport), and the possibility of what can be done (laminates). However these constraints are not communicated clearly. I'm 52 years old, I live in Germany, where we "recycle" for ages, about 30 years now, and we tell our kids and grannies and everybody in between to separate the trash because "recycling", and we see benches and other sturdy plastics items "made from trash" and still, only 17% of the collected packaging trash is reliably recycled, while the recycling of other plastics (toys, vehicle parts, any plastics that are not packaging) is also intransparent. https://bmbf-plastik.de/en/publication/plastic-atlas-2019-facts-and-figures-about-world-synthetic-polmers https://bmbf-plastik.de/en/publication/plastic-atlas-2019-fa... https://www.tagesschau.de/faktenfinder/kurzerklaert/kurzerklaert-recycling-101.html https://www.tagesschau.de/faktenfinder/kurzerklaert/kurzerkl...
nomoreusernames 6y ago
why do you want to reproduce? whats the point of forcing people to be born without their consent? whats wrong with nonexistence? is it not cruel to force people to become born and have to face the horrors of this place and then die and have all their loved ones die? i still dont get it to be honest. i mean i do, but i dont. but yeah to add to your list, dont partake in eating polarbears everytime a male in your village becomes of hunting age.
- nathias 6y ago
  How about all the people you're preventing to be born without their consent? Surely you see how idiotic this argument is from the other side?
- alfiedotwtf 6y ago
  > forcing people to be born without their consent How could someone consent to be born?
  - wombatpm 6y ago
    I was taught that a zygote was just gamates way of making more gamates.
  - Nasrudith 6y ago
    How can they even be forced when they don't exist for that matter?
- heyoni 6y ago
  What’s the argument here? Consent doesn’t really exist until the deed is done and someone is born…and although death is inevitable, it’s also a very small part of one’s life.
- krageon 6y ago
  This point of view is self-exterminating, which is why having it is dumb.
forgotmypw17 6y ago
It's not easy, almost impossible, to do overnight. Try it one thing or habit at a time. Single out one thing which is harmful, and commit to finding and integrating a substitute. Also, remember "cleaning" products besides a select few like Bronner's have the same type of crap in them. "Eco-friendly" ones like Seventh Gen and Meyer's are bullshit if you look at the ingredients list. Let's all take a moment to consider how blessed we are to have those ingredients list, by the way.
jimbob45 6y ago
Yeah this is my issue. I have to drink bottled water for water quality reasons. How am I supposed to avoid plastic there?
- robin_reala 6y ago
  Filtered water? Sure, the filter cartridges are plastic, but I’d guess that you’d reduce your plastic usage in general.
- atq2119 6y ago
  This is very much a cultural thing. Over here, you can easily get bottled water in glass bottles. The delivery services will pick up your tray with empty bottles to be reused. That's reuse after cleaning, not recycling!
  - hef19898 6y ago
    Europe, I guess? I had a talk late last year with a local brewery (traditinal bavarian one, family operated since the 1400s). And apparently everyone, especially Coca Cola, is going for glass right now. To the point reusable glass bottles are an actual bottle neck for them. Mind you, depsite the Covid caused demand drop. That was quite an interesting fun fact for me.
- dheera 6y ago
  Couple of options: (a) I used to live in Malaysia where tap water wasn't drinkable as-is, but filtering and boiling made it drinkable and tasted just fine. Hot water dispensers are pretty standard to have in most Asian homes; just put the water through a filtering pitcher before pouring into the hot water dispenser. (b) Subscribe to those 5-gallon big blue bottles and a dispenser. They get actually reused instead of downcycled.
  - inter_netuser 6y ago
    Blue plastic bottles leach endocrine disruptors, either BPA or BP-S.
- 6y ago
XiJInPaddington 6y ago
Because its the same thing as a person setting your house on fire then advising you not to breathe in the smoke. Advice like telling people we are drowning in plastic because we don't recycle, telling people with no access to public transportation to minimize the use of cars, telling people with no access to healthcare to take care of their bodies, telling people that grew up in a glorified prison they call public schools to get more education. They flood the world with plastic to the point where people effectively have no other option than use plastic then tell people to not use plastic. It's funny how if people say the solution to income inequality is to execute billionaires we would never seriously entertain that thought, we would immediately know that is an absurd solution, yet when people say guys choose not to use plastic we stop and consider it as if it is a viable solution for ordinary people and not callously asinine advise. It is no wonder there is so much rage in the Western world when the elites present such ridiculous solutions to problems they themselves brought into existence and expect us to act like they are priests endowed with God's personal blessing.
- loa_in_ 6y ago
  Who is "they"?
  - silexia 6y ago
    It is "we". Almost all people I know will make selfish decisions that harm others for their own advantage. It seems to be simply human nature.
    - MisterTea 6y ago
      > It seems to be simply nature. FTFY. It's all about survival. Humans are animals not much different than a deer, lion or whatever. A deer will run away from something it doesn't know where a lion will attack/kill anything it doesn't know. Just like the stereotypical "git off my land" character of a country bumpkin. I mean, how do you feel when you see a stranger walking on your property? Same thing. I always laugh when people say they feel close with nature. Um, hello! You ARE nature. The human brain just overlaid a thick layer of self awareness/logic/reasoning/emotion to the lower level animal bits. So instead of pissing on trees we instead draw lines on paper called borders and property lines. And we still live in trees, just dead ones turned into boxes called homes. For thousands of years we struggled like any other animal to survive. If you had food you made sure no one takes it. If you found a safe place to sleep you dint want to share it. If a stranger wanders into your territory, chase or kill them, they are a threat. If you were a male you had to prove your worthiness to a female by fighting or peacocking (some things never change...) etc. Oh and we smell just as bad. The stink of a locker room or unkempt home is no different then the stink of a farm or zoo. You're a smelly hairless great ape. Deal with it.
deleted 6y ago
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nostromo 6y ago
It’s interesting they call out vinyl shower curtains but not vinyl and polyester clothing, which we wear on our bodies all day. Even most cotton shirts and jeans tend to be a blend with synthetic plastic fibers because it stretches and breaths better.
- dehrmann 6y ago
  Or carpet.
- vladvasiliu 6y ago
  I think there's two issues. The first is that I recall the shower curtain problem was related to the heat / steam floating around in the shower which facilitated shedding of particles and also ingestion. Having the "plastic" clothing just on the body may be less bad. Also, and more importantly, I think people who are conscious about those things tend to wear less plastic fibers but won't necessarily think about the shower curtain. For example, except for full on technical sportswear (think biking shorts), I never wear polyester or other synthetic fibers in clothing that goes directly on my skin. I used to avoid it because, for the most part, I've found that polyester is less breathable, tends to stick a lot, etc. I try as much as possible (I check the labels) to stick to cotton / linen (for the summer) / wool (for the winter). Now, the whole "plastics are bad" thing doesn't really push me to reevaluate my choice.
- eznzt 6y ago
  > Even most cotton shirts and jeans tend to be a blend with synthetic plastic fibers because it stretches and breaths better. Just look at the labels...
- cameldrv 6y ago
  I'm not sure you should specifically be worried about vinyl shower curtains, but vinyl is a specific concern, because to get the form of vinyl that's soft and pliable, the vinyl is mixed about 50/50 with phthalates that are known endocrine disruptors. That said, phthalates are used in tons of stuff, and it's not fully clear to me which sources are the most important. I've replaced my soap/shampoo/shaving creams with phthalate free versions. It's also present though in basically all plastic tubing, which is known to leach phthalates and is used very extensively in food production machinery.
m_eiman 6y ago
There's a big difference in the amount of leakage from the plastics when it's cold vs when it's heated - so a good step is to put whatever you're heating on a plate before you put it in the microwave (or oven, or…), rather than heating it in the plastic it came in.
- segfaultbuserr 6y ago
  Also, avoid using dishwasher and dryer. But some types of plastic cookware is just a pain to clean up. The only solution is avoid buying any plastic cookware or food container completely. Unheated food-grade plastic is generally okay, but when exposed to heat or UV light, you have a big problem. This paper is worth reading [0], according to their experiment, almost all commercially available plastic products—independent of the type of resin, product, or retail source—leached chemicals after being exposed to UV lights or heat. [0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3222987/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3222987/
- hef19898 6y ago
  Isn't that common sense anyway? Especially the packaging it came with?
  - audunw 6y ago
    Lots of plastic containers for left over food claims to be microwave friendly. There are several pre-made food products on the market with plastic containers that instructs you to cook them in microwave with the plastic packaging still on. One product I tried recently even had a little tab on the plastic wrapper that would start whistling when the food was done. I think I tried it that one time. I don't usually buy things like that.
globular-toast 6y ago
My instincts have told me not to do any of this. All my life I've seen people microwaving stuff in plastic containers. I find it repulsive. I don't even own a microwave. I keep leftovers in bowls and reheat it in the oven or in a saucepan. I've always hated everything plastic really. And anything that decreases air quality. How people can spray tiny droplets of god knows what into the air and subsequently breathe then in is beyond me.
krageon 6y ago
It's reasonable to work on the factors that you can easily influence. Once you've tackled those, you can see what else you can still fix. It doesn't need to be all or nothing.
spodek 6y ago
> I really want to do this, but it seems impossibly hard. For example, almost all the food I buy is in plastic containers. Hacker News: colonizing to Mars is straightforward and natural. Buying vegetables fresh or organizing a farmers market is impossibly hard and goes against human nature.
lm28469 6y ago
> For example, almost all the food I buy is in plastic containers. I stopped buying these a while ago. Buy fresh veggies, classic pasta/rice/lentils or whatever you fancy, meat from the butcher if you eat meat, I skip anything I can't identify or anything that I couldn't make myself at home with regular ingredients. It's super restrictive but you get rid of literally 99% of junk food. You are what you eat, quite literally
- graeme 6y ago
  Not that simple. The paper your butcher uses also has plastic most likely. Most paper products do these days. You nonetheless minimize exposure that way to be clear.
goatcode 6y ago
It's difficult to do it all at once. Taking little steps might help: instead of using plastic tupperware, use glass; instead of buying beans in a can, buy dry beans; balcony garden? Sure! Even if some things are impossible to do, it's imo best to not pile on top of those problems issues that aren't impossible to solve.
- boatsie 6y ago
  Even dry beans come in a plastic bag...
  - goatcode 6y ago
    If so, and while microplastics may still be an issue, leeching due to wet beans being in contact with the plastic lining of their cans is not. Along the same lines as my original general message: a bit at a time.
soheil 6y ago
What part of taking out the food you buy out of its plastic container before microwaving it is impossibly hard?

haspoken 6y ago

http://archive.is/gwyni http://archive.is/gwyni

refurb 6y ago

As a scientist I hate articles like this. Apparently putting the word “may” in the title allows one to pontificate wildly about what might be the cause of falling sperm rates and other reproductive trends. Little to no comments about other possible causes, no data that shows a relationship between “endocrine disruptors” and sperm counts, no comments about levels of these chemicals in the population or what levels they become active at. After reading the article all I can firmly conclude is: 1) reproductive changes are happening, 2) endocrine disruptors are suspected, but there is no direct evidence. Not very helpful.

vmception 6y ago
My publicist used to do this all the time. We'd even go as far as ghostwriting the articles ourselves. This is an advertisement for the epidemiologist's book, which may contain the depth of information you are looking for.
- dehrmann 6y ago
  You might be right. > Now Swan, an epidemiologist at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York, has written a book, “Count Down,” that will be published on Tuesday and sounds a warning bell. And it's a book that just happens to be coming out this week. In the opinion column.
  - vmception 6y ago
    Yeah, there is nothing “organic” We would even get listicles published where our service was like third or even tenth in the listicles So if I was this author, and I imagined people wanted to learn more about “endocrine disruptors”, my book would be third in the list of books about endocrine disruptors on someone’s blog or respected site. These arent necessarily paid for so I guess you dont need it to say its advertisement, the authors are just in the publicist’s network The beauty of listicles and even articles like this one is that its not even about engagement. Like, sure your google results are going to look phenomenal but that just disarms paranoid people you date that will search your name, the article still is not even seeking organic hoards of people yet. Being mentioned along side competitors or elusive people in your field is way more powerful and makes it easier to open a dialogue with them. Like “oh hey we’re both recognized lets go on msnbc together”

dragosmocrii 6y ago

Damn, having watched Children of Men recently, this article is chilling

King-Aaron 6y ago
Upvote for one of the (in my opinion) best movies of our time
federona 6y ago
The biggest problem we have is we keep making things that we have no idea of the consequences and then to get rid of them takes a while because industry says no we can't do this, there will be too much economic damage. Same with all environmental issues, the speed of damage is much faster than the ability to control the economics created as a result. As a result unless something is shown to be immediately fatal, it's hard to prove without a doubt it's fatal and often the damage done is cumulative and distributed across the whole industry. There is no easy solution to this.
m_eiman 6y ago
That movie is terribly depressing, and terribly good.

sneak 6y ago

Related: http://vhemt.org/ http://vhemt.org/ (one of the oldest websites on this here internet, as well.)

heyoni 6y ago
The point of that movement is to restore balance to earth, but what’s the value in doing so if no one is around to appreciate it? There’s really no difference one way or the other; it’s just a sphere in the universe.
- scbrg 6y ago
  The biosphere consists of more individuals than just humans. The argument is that humans, specifically, do quite a lot more harm than good to the rest of earth's population. With perhaps a few exceptions, most other species would be much better off without us.
  - adrianN 6y ago
    Humans are with high probability the only chance Earth's ecosystem has of surviving the death of the Sun.

hilbert42 6y ago

It would be helpful if we knew eactly what these endocrine-disrupting chemicals were. As is usually the case with such reports, this article is short on specifics. Over the years there have many reports from cleaners to plasticizers, phthalates, and various other chemicals as endocrine disruptors but no one has put a sufficient measure on the problem so that we can move foreword - put regulations in place, etc. As the article points out, what is so problematic is that many of the chemicals that are under suspicion are ubiquitous and not easily avoided. I consider it important that we act quickly for not only public health reasons but also the fact that we're living in an increasingly chemical-phobic society and worrying the public without solid evidence isn't helpful to anybody. We need need more research on this urgently. Afterthought: it is essential that we have solid evidence ASAP as billions of dollars are tied up in the plastics industry. Plastics already cause environmental problems (and I constantly curse the fact that I have to get rid of so much waste plastic) but there's no point deliberately alienating the plastics industry without good cause.

m_eiman 6y ago
There are lists available, e.g. https://edlists.org/ https://edlists.org/ When the EU was debating the REACH regulations there was a big push to move to a "don't sell or produce it until you can prove it's safe" stance, but AFAIK it was significantly watered down before an agreement was reached. https://ec.europa.eu/environment/chemicals/reach/reach_en.htm https://ec.europa.eu/environment/chemicals/reach/reach_en.ht... Then there's the problem of "chemical cocktails", where combinations of chemicals are more dangerous than each chemical by itself; this gets a lot of media space, but is even harder to research than individual chemicals since just about everything gets mixed up in various concentrations in nature.
- MattGaiser 6y ago
  Is there a reason we can't just dump tons of mice into different sets and combos of chemicals and see what happens?
  - sdenton4 6y ago

o_p 6y ago

Why so pessimist? One plastic a day keeps the vasectomy away

bpodgursky 6y ago

Would it be... unreasonable... to point out that the fall in sperm quality, egg quality, and overall hormonal disruption is happening concurrent with a blurring of overall gender identification, predominantly in the youngest generation? Identification as trans or other non-binary status is incredibly high among the gen-z cohort. Might be unrelated social upheaval, but would anyone really be surprised if we weren't accidentally hormonally poisoning children at the same time they are developing their own gender identities?

konjin 6y ago
You're only allowed to write vague doomsday articles about things that people like to hate. It's pretty funny that you're downvoted for using exactly the same type of vague fear mongering that the article does but because you did it towards unacceptable targets peoples incredulity kicked in. I wish people would use their ability to think in all cases, not just when they disagree with the conclusion. And if you're about to flag and downvote this because you think I'm being *ist, you are exactly the problem since I did nothing of the sort.
inglor_cz 6y ago
I am dismayed, but not entirely surprised, that you are getting downvoted for this. If we really have hormonal disruption of the ecosystem strong enough that alligators have problems breeding, why wouldn't it influence human behavior? Hormones influence human behavior all the time, so if there is a change in the balance, there should be a change in the behavior patterns. This is a testable hypothesis and should not be discarded automatically without being tested, especially by HN forists who are expected to be, on average, more friendly towards critical thinking and less towards dogmatism.
arp242 6y ago
I don't think Caitlyn Jenner is gen-Z, or The Wachowskis. I mean, maybe there is a link? It's not inconceivable I suppose, but I am not aware of any evidence, and purely comparing numbers of people is not a very good way of going about this. You will find there are a lot more gay people in the United States than in, say, Saudi Arabia too. But that doesn't mean there are environmental factors in the US that make people gay: they just don't feel free to declare themselves as such in SA because you will get in to trouble.

inter_netuser 6y ago

This affects not only humans, but the entire ecosystems. This disruption is happening right now, and is the cause of the die off of many species. It's a true emergency. TODAY.

techbio 6y ago
Preservation of state is not a feature of evolution, and as elegant and informative a theory as it may be, it has as long a history of negative selection as of positive survival.
- inter_netuser 6y ago
  Are you condoning the destruction of our earth for short term profits?
  - techbio 6y ago
    I cannot believe you think my opinion is going to alter the profit motive, but no, for what it's worth, I am not condoning the destruction of the earth. I'm describing a way to think about our influence on the environment that is most likely to actually happen.

GameOfKnowing 6y ago

Trans community is way ahead of you, bud...

Flow 6y ago

Related: "Chemicals in plastics damage babies' brains and must be banned immediately (cnn.com)" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26211605 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26211605

terse_malvolio 6y ago
If only plastic utensils and other plastic one-use expendables had never been taken as good idea in the first place
- Flow 6y ago
  I think many health problems are related to not a few single causes, but to a cocktail of problems, some chemical, other purely lifestyle(sleep, food, exercise). It's humbling how much AND little we know about processes in the body. Just read the article and comments some days ago about antidepressants. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26197140 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26197140
slipper 6y ago
Except most babies seem to be fine, so maybe the fear is overblown? I think it should be kept in check, as it seems all sorts of nasty stuff can be mixed into plastic. But many plastics seem to be fine. There is also poisonous stuff in plants, including wood.
- AuryGlenz 6y ago
  I mean, people probably said the same thing about leaded gasoline. Just because things are “fine” doesn’t mean they’re ideal.

jonplackett 6y ago

As someone who has had to do IVF for our child and go through the challenge of figuring our what to do to try and improve sperm quality, I can tell you once you start looking into it, basically everything about modern life is bad for sperm. Heat, radiation, plastic, micro plastics, soya, tap water, Teflon, antibacterial soap, underpants, western diet. It’s a perfect storm. If you’re going though it though I offer a ray of hope that it was possible to sufficiently avoid these things, at least temporarily, and it made a very large difference (4X better within 6 months) and resulted in a now 3 year old child.

mpfundstein 6y ago
i dont know. i did all of the bad stuff and surely wasnt a very health aware person (smoking, drinking, weed, late nights, slight overweight, city life) but got my wife pregnant within one period cycle and we did that two times (two kids). its probably a factor. but very nice to hear that it worked out for you. most have been a stressful period
- jonplackett 6y ago
  Well, lucky you I guess. For some of us it’s a harder road and requires more work. For me, cutting out those things did make a difference on multiple tests that trended up as I cut these things out. All of the above have varying degrees of evidence to support that they affect sperm. The problem is that you’re on a tight deadline and have no time to isolate your variables. Your only option is to go 100% on everything.
WA 6y ago
Soy isn't that easy: https://www.health.harvard.edu/newsletter_article/Medical-memo-Soy-and-sperm https://www.health.harvard.edu/newsletter_article/Medical-me... There was one study with 99 participants. A counter argument is Asia, where men eat a lot more soy and don't have reduced sperm count.
- chaostheory 6y ago
  Isn't the difference in Asia because they eat less processed soy compared to the US and EU?

RGamma 6y ago

The planet is ridding itself of its disease, beautiful.

dang 6y ago
Please don't do this here.
Darmody 6y ago
If you consider humans a disease, would you be ok with someone killing you? Because that's what you do to a disease, you get rid of it.
- RGamma 6y ago
  I'm thinking in terms of an organism going against its own ecosystem. Imagine if a new species of killer ant evolved that has no natural predators, procreates quickly and eats up its habitat. For a short while it's going to be the greatest species in its ecosystem... Of course we likely wouldn't see such an ant because it would have wiped itself out by resource exhaustion unless it adapted (or e.g. a natural predator came about). An ant couldn't do much about its biological makeup or its instincts and so nature would run its course; it lacks self-awareness and general intelligence. Now imagine humanity, posessing these traits, would recognize that it itself is the killer ant and would organize itself with their great scientific and economic prowess and with the same fervor it discusses about banalities during this - historically speaking - mild pandemic (mild in the sense that coronavirus is not the black death, not mild in the sense that so many people died unnecessarily due to our own shortcomings) to not eat their habitat. Or it would stop constantly working against its self-imposed conflicting incentives in poltics or the economy. Or it would stop trapping hundreds of millions of people in self-serving mind cages optimizing for metrics that make no sense and pondering about how to best mind control their userbase. Or it would stop allocating so many resources (money) towards fads, consumption crap and get-rich-quick schemes. The pandemic forced our hands, it couldn't be kicked down the road for some later time (an excellent motivator!) and so we adapted; unfortunately biosphere degradation as a whole does not yet, which is why our reaction is so sluggish and overconsumption or pollution are still mostly seen as some optional or cosmetic problem (but at least they're seen, I guess). And no, many solutions offered by businesses are none: replacing hundreds of millions of cars with hundreds of millions of other cars? Replacing plastic straws in fast food restaurants with paper ones while the food served there is subsidized by an agricultural industry with ridiculous land use (just look at current satellite maps... holy crap). The patient earth is ill and treating overconsumption with another (more nicely dressed) form of overconsumption is symptomatic at best and a distraction. If you're a smoker the only thing you can do to truly cure the ailments is to fix the root cause and stop smoking, not take pills to mask the symptoms. I hope one of these days a critical mass realizes that modern manufactured-demand capitalism has run its course or we're in for a bad time (the more sensitive individuals already are). But I suppose that would entail realizing that so many of us dependent on it have been living a lie. /rant (not really related to parent, so sorry if you felt antagonized, but I had to let this out somewhere whew) P.S. Somewhat related to the article: I recently discovered these good looking closed aquariums called ecosphere. Turns out if you put higher organisms like shrimp in there they won't procreate due to bad environmental conditions.

deleted 6y ago

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ggreer 6y ago

> Now Swan, an epidemiologist at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York, has written a book, “Count Down,” that will be published on Tuesday and sounds a warning bell. This article is a submarine[1] for some guy’s book. 1. http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html

forgotmypw17 6y ago
Sure, but it is also true.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

yudlejoza 6y ago

Pick a random essential nutrient. For instance, take zinc. Human body needs it. It needs to be taken in. You need to ensure the right food items, or the right supplements, doesn't matter. Where does that source come from? plants? animals? imported? produced? What goes into that? What's the prevalent intake level in developed countries? developing countries? what should be the right intake level? where (which parts of the world) do we have excess? where do we have deficiency? How is zinc flushed? where does it go? rivers? recycled? ends up in ocean? Keep going. And you realize there is a massive, highly complex, global zinc-supply-chain-cycle that has a crucial role in zinc ingestion in different parts of the world. And that's just one of the hundred or so nutrients. Now multiply that with all the rest of the nutrients and nutrient groups. It's a behemoth of a multi-nutrient-supply-chain-cycle! Somewhere there's tremendous waste going on. Somewhere else there's tremendous deficiency going on, resulting in, possibly idiopathic, diseases among whole groups of people. Now (the most important and the most interesting part) turn that "scientific" (observed) system into an "engineered" (planned) one! Go figure!

hef19898 6y ago
Or just stop, or reduce as much as possible, the amount of crap we eat? There is no reason why meat has to be that low cost. Or that we cannot cook ourselves with fresh ingredients, ideally grown and sourced locally. Nutrition, being a basic of human survival, has been sovled for millenias. We just lost it with pushing industrialized food production, of any kid, way to far over the point needed to get rid of starvation.
- yudlejoza 6y ago
  A simpleton tree-hugger mindset will automagically solve our biggest global challenges for 8 billion people in the 21st century. After all, it "feels" like it will work for millions, so it'll end up working for billions too. And it makes you feel all comfy and angelic inside. Got it.
  - amanaplanacanal 6y ago
    The problem is having 8 billion children to begin with. I don’t think that problem is solvable.

mikkelam 6y ago

Is this really so bad? Assuming humans are hit the hardest, the planet will be better off. Obviously we wouldn't want it to kill our civilization, but for the mean time, it doesn't sound so bad with less homo sapiens

cblconfederate 6y ago
1. This is happening in the western world, not in places the population is growing fastest 2. It's not just less humans, it s of worse quality
- yakshemash 6y ago
  1. The per capita environmental footprint is at least an order of magnitude, if not closer to two, higher in the western world 2. The subtext of this point is so distasteful to me that I can't figure out how to engage with it. How do you measure the quality of a human?
  - cblconfederate 6y ago
    I mean health-wise, as the article says. You measure it with objective measures. I m not sure why it s distasteful to you?
  - Rompect 6y ago
    > How do you measure the quality of a human Net worth obviously. Riffraff are mostly worthless creatures.
- arrayjumper 6y ago
  > 2. It's not just less humans, it s of worse quality what do you mean by this? that humans not of the western world are "lower quality"?
  - 4gotunameagain 6y ago
    I assumed that this characterization in this context meant "less capable to protect Earth/environment/humanity", which is not too controversial given the inverse correlation between average education level and birthrates

NIGGERISH 6y ago

“Climate change is one exception“ Lol every time...

NIGGERISH 6y ago

“Climate change is one exception“ Lol... Every damn time.

cortexio 6y ago

Cant read the article because it's behind a stupid paywall, posts like that should be banned because it's basically a commercial. Anyway, i think the falling sperm counts is probably from being inside all the time, lack of physical exercise and overdose on dopamine.

cblconfederate 6y ago

And what are the behavioral effects of such large physiological changes en masse? Surely neurochemical changes will manifest everywhere, from mental health to politics

mekkkkkk 6y ago
Shorter attention spans, more lethargy, lower overall intelligence. You could point at a number of cultural and political developments over the last decades and argue that these neurochemical changes could be a contributing factor. However, it must be pretty much impossible to know for sure. The supposed effects are too intangible and the compounds are too pervasive. We can only speculate.
- cblconfederate 6y ago
  This might well be true, and there may be a measurable correlation if someone is willing to investigate it. However i m not sure what s the way forward: policies to reverse this health crisis, or adapt politics to this new reality?
  - mekkkkkk 6y ago
    If the causality is correct, then this "new" reality is already here. Hence, adaptation is too currently happening. Big policy changes to curb plastic use is only a favor for our grandkids.

esja 6y ago

Can these endocrine disruptors also contribute to gender dysphoria?

fogihujy 6y ago
It sounds plausible that anything with the ability to disturb hormone production could also indirectly affect things like sexuality and one's gender identity. A quick googling suggests it has been suggested before, and that it's a highly controversial topic as it indicates that something is inherently wrong with being transgender. At best, it's something that needs much more research before any conclusions can be drawn.
- zug_zug 6y ago
  As somebody with a friend who has gender stuff going on, I can tell you the friend just wants an honest answer out of science and couldn't care less about indirect implications.
  - fogihujy 6y ago
    It doesn't affect me at all either, but I'd still be cautious before making any claims hinting that being trans is a medical condition -- if it does indeed turn out to be related, then it could turn a lot of people's lives upside down.
    - pb7 6y ago
      > being trans is a medical condition Curious, what else is it if not that? Eczema is also a medical condition too but we don't shame people for having it. Medical conditions shouldn't carry the implication that you're a broken person as a result of it.
      - zug_zug 6y ago
        Terminology is super important. Obviously everything about a person is a biological fact, but "medical condition" implies a certain severity and negativity. It's sort of like asking if being shorter than 6' a medical condition. Or if being unattractive is a medical condition. Obviously not in the common parlance, and anybody who wanted to classify it as such would be seen as a real agitator. I suppose for people who experience full gender dysphoria and want to transition that's probably necessary for sake of insurance coverage. But I think most people who don't feel either gender norm feels right for them (e.g. "genderqueer") prefer not to have a medical label on it.

protoman3000 6y ago

On this topic I can recommend the dystopian movie “Children of Men”. It’s about modern world of basically our time where nobody can get children and what issues arise.

akiselev 6y ago
Off topic tangent: "Children of Men" is also a great litmus test for search engines. Searching for "movie without babies" in Google yields "Children of Men" as the first result (and has since before 2010). Other search engines generally return movies about babies and stuff like that

ecmascript 6y ago

Some time ago I realized that modern life wasn't that good for your health so last year I bought a farm on the country side with my gf and now we are trying to grow our own food and make our way into a more self-sustainable life.

fogihujy 6y ago
My family and I did the same a few years ago. I wholeheartedly recommend it.
DC1350 6y ago
Why do you think the solution is farm life and not something more primitive?
ThisIsTheWay 6y ago
I'm interested in this. Care to share more about how you learned? How do you handle water collection, filtration, and distribution? What types of fertilizers are you using to improve the nutrients in your growing soil? What crops are you growing, and are you managing livestock?

CryptoPunk 6y ago

I wonder if the divergence between Asian and Western countries in sperm count is due to cultural reasons. Maybe the fall of traditional culture in the West, and all the allowances it made for male behavior, has had psychological effects that have something to do with it. Plastics are massively used in Asia, which is why I speculate the cause could be psychological as opposed to chemical.

tracker1 6y ago

Generations of low dietary fat, franken-foods and just eating garbage. Plastics, it's all part of it.

FriendlyNormie 6y ago

Are any of you imbeciles who are suddenly pretending to care so much about this issue humble enough to admit that you’re stupid cunts for mocking Alex Jones for being the only person to point this out over the past fifteen years? Now no one will take the issue seriously despite a news outlet whose dick you DO suck reporting on it because everyone’s already been conditioned through your past ridicule to fear being associated with woo woo man if they take this seriously. Good job you fucking absolute retarded faggots.

gadders 6y ago

something something Alex Jones something something //edit// This is semi-facetious, but he did mention something similar in his, er, unique fashion.

barbacoa 6y ago
He also would rant about jeffrey epstein years before the media caught on.
- gadders 6y ago
  Sounds like Johnny Rotten and Jimmy Savile: https://louderthanwar.com/interesting-1978-clip-of-johnny-rotten-warning-about-jimmy-savile/ https://louderthanwar.com/interesting-1978-clip-of-johnny-ro...

tubularhells 6y ago

Jokes on you, my sperm count fell 100% three years ago, and I like it that way.

simonebrunozzi 6y ago
How comes? A disease, a condition, or what?
- thrwyoilarticle 6y ago
  I think OP is hinting at a vasectomy.
  - cblconfederate 6y ago
    technically not a drop in sperm count
    - tubularhells 6y ago
      It objectively is. I have a paper to prove.

nemo44x 6y ago

We see similar things happening with digestive diseases between the West and Asia. Diverticulitis is pretty rare in Asia (and Africa for that matter) and fairly common in the West. But what’s interesting is that it is just as common for Asians that move to the West after about 12 years or so which rules out genetics. Additionally we are seeing it occur in younger and younger people. This was once a disease for ages 60+ and now it’s not uncommon to find it in people in their 40’s and 30’s and occasionally their 20’s now! It’s assumed the types of foods more common in a Western diet are the cause of this but there isn’t concrete proof. It’s a strong hypothesis though. It’s thought the main cause is foliage ingestion, or lack of. People in Asia and Africa eat a lot more plants which are high in fiber. So I don’t think it’s just obesity and being overweight that are the issue but how we get obese and overweight and I believe that all this, from infertility to early onset of digestive diseases are related in large part to our diets.

esja 6y ago
Similar effects have been seen with Multiple Sclerosis. People of the same genetic background who move to Western countries are more likely to develop MS than those who stay behind. I can’t remember the specific countries unfortunately.

godmode2019 6y ago

I don't have any data but I wonder if stuff like this will affect the gene pool. If the cause is environmental then it shouldnt have an affect. But genes are weird considering epigenetics. Almost like the the movie 'Children of men'

souprock 6y ago
If the cause is environmental then that means the environment changed, and environmental change causes a change in selection.

chiefalchemist 6y ago

Correct me if I'm wrong but being overweight or obese is an endocrine disruptor. Such conditions exist in what ~50%+ of USA adults. Worse there are children growing up who are effectively unhealthy from age 5 forward. Add in other disruptors (e.g., chemicals) and naturally there are going to be problems; problems despite the narrative, are not due to the healthcare system.

amanaplanacanal 6y ago
It wouldn’t surprise me if we discover that the exogenous disrupters are causing the high obesity rate.
- chiefalchemist 6y ago
  Causing? Maybe. Contributing to? Probably. Toss is compromised gut bacteria (due to other environmental factors) and it all adds up. That said, drinking soda as if it's water, regularly consuming junk "food", as well as going weeks without breaking a sweat is a great foundation to build such a crisis of convergence on.
tzone 6y ago
In the list of: "practical suggestions" in the article, they talk about literally everything except for weight-loss and getting in shape.
cblconfederate 6y ago
This is not limited to US men, similar pattern everywhere in western world https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/sperm-count-dropping-in-western-world/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/sperm-count-dropp...
- chiefalchemist 6y ago
  Well, it's the Western diet. The US created and exported so we're ahead by a decade or so. But yes, the USA isn't the only country eating itself to death. Slowly.

avsteele 6y ago

This is the most important part of the essay: Uncertainty remains, research sometimes conflicts and biological pathways aren’t always clear. There are competing theories about whether the sperm count decline is real and what might cause it and about why girls appear to be reaching puberty earlier, and it’s sometimes unclear whether an increase in male genital abnormalities reflects actual rising numbers or just better reporting. You should maintain a very low prior probability of this being true without more information. Remember correlation usually != causation https://www.gwern.net/Causality https://www.gwern.net/Causality There are a lot of other possible causes for all the these declines. (obesity and lower physical activity being only the most likely-seeming to me)

galangalalgol 6y ago
Obesity being a correlation might mean it is also a symptom. We already know from a couple studies that people with the same activity level and calorie intake are significantly more overweight than in the 80s. One leading hypothesis is endocrine disruptors.
- ntsplnkv2 6y ago
  I'd be very wary of any studies that ask people to identify "activity level."
  - galangalalgol 6y ago
    That does seem the weak point. The body can conserve calories in many hard to observe ways. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1871403X15001210 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S18714...
- klmadfejno 6y ago
  Possible, but I would tend to bet its just a high sugar and sweetener diet more than anything. Obesity is not uniform at all. In pre covid days of seeing many people, I would rarely see anyone who is obese (northeast american), but that's because I'm in an upper middle class bubble. These days I'm pretty good about avoiding heating up plastics and what not. Growing up it wasn't on our radar at all. Point I'm trying to make is plastic exposure is pretty high for all populations, whereas diet varies tremendously by social class, and the composition of it has changed significantly since the 80s.

yters 6y ago

Could all the porn consumption and masturbation be a factor? Also I have heard contraceptive use in the past can affect female fertility. There is also potential leakage of contraceptives into our water supply.

DC1350 6y ago

It’s called the globohomo agenda and they want to make you weak so you can’t fight back.

puppable 6y ago
I don't see what Devo has to do with this...
NelsonMinar 6y ago
No, the globohomo agenda is turning all the cute young men gay. Not you, from your words I can tell you're ugly.
- DC1350 6y ago
  This comment is not appropriate for HN.
  - selimthegrim 6y ago
    It was a tongue-in-cheek response to the parent (you)
randomopining 6y ago
Yeah pretty much. But I don’t think it’s insidious. They just need weak people who will bow to every “pop culture” norm they create to buy the latest stuff. Strong individualists or even even keel/healthy ones will realize they don’t need much and don’t need to do much to enjoy life. Weak people need something to grasp onto to give them meaning. Muh new toys, muh new car, muh racism, muh social justice, muh politics, muh cardi b, muh $14 drinks at the bar.

dukeofdoom 6y ago

I followed this girl on youtube that built a tiny house in the mountains. She carries her own water, makes bread from wheat she mills, makes her own hummus and cabbage and eats copious amounts of each and vegetables. Hardly has phone/internet service because she lives in a mountain valley. Plays music with friends, reads and does yoga for entertainment. Surprise, surprise. You are your habits! She looks very fit and healthy. I'm not advocating for traditionalism, but more like, optimizing your habits. The simple basic, inexpensive things she does, and eats are pretty optimized for health and personal growth. Isabel's Channel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4cght8xNnI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4cght8xNnI

hobo_mark 6y ago
If she didn't look very fit and healthy, you would not be following her on youtube, and would not know she existed, even with the same lifestyle.
- dukeofdoom 6y ago
  Thats true to a degree. But I'm betting many unfit people would get fit if adapting the same diet/lifestyle habits.
  - Balgair 6y ago
    Anecdata: As quarantine drags on, I've stopped eating fast-food/restaurants and only eat things that I 'make'. I'm not going to say that it's healthy food, because I like cookies and beer and burgers. But just not eating fast food resulted in ~20lbs lost. I sleep better, I'm not as exhausted in the early afternoon, and I just 'feel' better. We'll see how post-pandemic life goes, but I'm going to try to stay on this diet at least.
- Majestic121 6y ago
  I don't know if you've ever been to the mountains[1], but if you do you'll find out most of the people living there are and look super healthy, even (especially) at an advanced age. The main difference I can see between my experience and the one of the youtube girl is that people in the mountain don't necessarily eat what would be considered healthy, but a lot of meat and animal products. It definitely deserves more actual research, but a mountain lifestyle does seem to push towards regular exercise, which in turn provides overall good health. As a singular data point, you can see from BMI comparisons that countries with mountains (Switzerland, Austria, France, Italy) fare pretty good in comparison to others: https://www.euronews.com/2019/05/09/which-country-has-the-highest-average-bmi-in-europe https://www.euronews.com/2019/05/09/which-country-has-the-hi... [1] At least the Alps

ahstilde 6y ago

https://www.givelegacy.com/ https://www.givelegacy.com/ is helping men protect their fertility.

airhead969 6y ago

I went to glass containers for food storage and transfer food out of plastic packaging as soon as possible. Precocious puberty: I had a mental health hit (near collapse) from something that happened in my mid 20's. I started dating the stepdaughter of a neighbor (upper-middle class area) who said she was 19, and she definitely seemed it by being smart, chill, age-mature, sensible, and fully-developed (Tanner V). Lo and behold: she was not 17, 16, or 15, but 12. 12! WTH? I felt awful, ashamed, and like a perv monster. Thankfully, nothing illegal progressed but it was way too close and that would've been the end of my life. The worst part was I really liked, respected, got along with, and was attracted to her. Why, human condition, why? Torture. Sigh.

pb7 6y ago
You confused a middle schooler for a 19 year old? Yikes.
- airhead969 6y ago
  Confused? No. She passed herself off as that, acted, and looked the part completely. Size D. Extreme precocious puberty. You would've been fooled too, so please don't judge with perfect knowledge and 20/20 hindsight from afar if you weren't there.
  - pb7 6y ago
    > acted I have a very hard time believing a 12 year old can pass as a 19 year old in maturity. What knowledge or experience can a 12 year old offer to a mid 20s individual to appear intelligent, as you claim? > You would've been fooled too Zero chance. In my mid 20s, I already considered 19 year olds to be far too removed in life stages to consider seriously and the maturity gap between a 12 year old and an 19 year old is astronomical.
    - forgetfulness 6y ago
      Charitably, maybe our colleague here has some type of personality or even neurological disorder that would allow him to, earnestly, bond with a 12 year old as a partner rather than a child acquaintance. A disorder that he should get treated because that poses a danger to others and, eventually, himself. Given the astonishing justifications he gives I'd say his psych and he have a lot of work ahead.

mvh 6y ago

My dad (professor at University of Arizona) interviewed Shanna Swan, a scientist profiled in this article, recently. Anyone interested can find the episode here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/reproductive-health-shanna-swan/id1325288920?i=1000508545504 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/reproductive-health-sh...

esja 6y ago
Some of the other episodes look great as well. Thanks for sharing!

tuckerpo 6y ago

Shoddy endogenous androgen production in men is likely a function of excess adipose tissue causing higher rates of aromatization of T to estrogen Being overweight or obese makes it more difficult to lose weight and put on muscle, a feedback loop Clean diet and regular exercise goes a very long way, but nutrient deficient soil is making micro-nutrient deficiencies more difficult to resolve. Anecdotally, eating a whole foods diet consistent of high quality protein usually sourced from local farms (I'm in rural upstate NY), I still find myself needing to supplement magnesium, zinc, D3 and K2.

curation 6y ago

I think of it as evolution.

kyrieeschaton 6y ago

Please add this to the column of "things evil right wing twitter anons were investigating years beforehand", so you can update your estimates of their future credibility.

mk4p 6y ago

A friend of mine is working on a supplement that may help in this regard, at least on the female part of the equation. > There is a a very interesting substance that could also increase fertility: nicotinamide mononucleotide (NMN). https://novoslabs.com/can-nmn-supplements-restore-fertility/ https://novoslabs.com/can-nmn-supplements-restore-fertility/ (Disclaimer: I've invested in his company)

master_yoda_1 6y ago

And the great paywall

Managor 6y ago

The biggest source of endocrine disruptors are plants

Managor 6y ago

The biggest source of endocrine disruptors are plants. It's as simple as that. And they're all natural to top it all off.