How Sky Rocketing infertility Is threatening our future population?
Researcher and author, Shanna Swan, Ph.D explains in her book “Count Down” how endocrine-disrupting chemicals are causing an extreme decrease in sperm counts, testosterone, and a growing population of infertile couples.
Traditionally, fertility struggles have been painted as a “women’s issue.” You might have experienced this yourself, struggling to conceive and the first thing to be suggested is to do a work up on you to see if you're the problem, and after exhausting the testing for you, your doc will then look at your partner’s sperm.
The truth is, the fertility potential for both men and women are looking bleak at the moment. In Dr. Swan’s recent book “Count Down: How Our Modern World is Threatening Sperm Counts, Altering Male and Female Reproductive Development and Imperiling the Future of the Human Race,” she explains how her research in environmental and reproductive epidemiology has shown that the global fertility rate has dropped 50% between 1960 and 2016 and that the US birth rate is 16% below what it needs to be to sustain our population.
No one is escaping the environmental effects, including men, women, and even children. Adverse reproductive changes have been increasing by 1% per year in men and women. Men are experiencing dropping testosterone and sperm levels, increased rates of testicular cancer, and elevated prevalence of erectile dysfunction. Miscarriage rates are also increasing by about 1% per year. And children with sex related dysfunction is increasing as well.
While a woman is pregnant, her developing baby is extremely sensitive to external chemicals. Swan has found a link between endocrine disrupting hormones in utero and resulting physical and mental changes to those children. She has found that the rate of genital deformities are on the rise, maturation and development of sexual characteristics of male and female babies are being altered, and brain physiology is being affected as well, causing behavior changes typical for little boys and girls to be blurred.
While we don’t feel it’s threatening that children aren’t fulfilling gender stereotypes, it is alarming that body development is being impaired and altered, what does this mean for the fertility and overall health of our children?
Research points to endocrine-disrupting phthalates as the most likely cause for these issues.
Phthalates are synthetic chemicals that are used to make plastics and they mimic and disrupt the body’s hormones. Practically impossible to avoid, phthalates are found in almost everything: plastics, shampoo, cosmetics, personal care products, furniture, anything with a flame retardant, pesticides, and canned foods.
Not only is it concerning that impaired fertility can have a disastrous affect on our future population, but Swan also found that fertility issues such as low sperm count, recurrent miscarriages, and reproductive disorders such as endometriosis and PCOS can have profound repercussions for overall long-term health and can even lead to premature mortality.
If we keep continuing on this path, the picture is not looking good.
Right now many of the treatments for conditions resulting from sexual hormone disruption can be causing more harm than good. More young men than every are being put on testosterone therapy, and often without the knowledge that it can cause destroy your sperm production leaving men with a sperm count of zero. More than 11 million US women of reproductive age are on the pill, which has been shown to cause over-suppression syndrome, resulting in infertility.
While the outlook is not ideal, Swan does say there’s hope for the future and there are things you can do to help reduce your exposure.
Avoid plastic use for food storage. Use glass containers or stainless steel. And whatever you do, don’t microwave anything in plastic.
Stop smoking and limit drinking. Smokers have been shown to have lower sperm counts than non-smokers and drinking more than 7 drinks per week has a damaging effect on sperm.
Invest in quality foods. Buying organic will help you to avoid exposure to pesticides. And organic dairy and meat will help you to avoid any added hormones.
Buy products that are “paraben-free” and “phthalate-free” and avoid anything that is anitbacterial on your skin. The Environmental Working Group (EWG) has a great database, in which you can check the rating of almost any personal care product to avoid toxic ones.
Practice a healthful lifestyle. Those with lower amounts of stress and who exercise regularly tend to have higher fertility function than those who are couch potatoes and riddled with stress.
Infertility is painful, and our modern environment is not helping. The best you can do is control your environment to the best of your ability to ensure you are protecting your, your partner’s, and your future children’s health and fertility.
