[HN Gopher] Falling sperm counts, declining egg quality, and end...
___________________________________________________________________
Falling sperm counts, declining egg quality, and endocrine
disruptors
Author : vincentmarle
Score : 454 points
Date : 2021-02-22 07:54 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nytimes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nytimes.com)
| NIGGERISH wrote:
| "Climate change is one exception"
|
| Lol every time...
| NIGGERISH wrote:
| "Climate change is one exception"
|
| Lol... Every damn time.
| godmode2019 wrote:
| 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'
| kyrieeschaton wrote:
| 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.
| GameOfKnowing wrote:
| Trans community is way ahead of you, bud...
| Flow wrote:
| Related:
|
| "Chemicals in plastics damage babies' brains and must be banned
| immediately (cnn.com)"
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26211605
| slipper wrote:
| 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.
| terse_malvolio wrote:
| If only plastic utensils and other plastic one-use expendables
| had never been taken as good idea in the first place
| Flow wrote:
| 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
| jonplackett wrote:
| 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.
| tzone wrote:
| Weight loss and proper exercise will probably deliver 99% of
| the improvements for 99% of the people. Stressing about heat,
| radiation, micro plastics, or other random stuff seems like
| extra stress for not that much benefit.
|
| Most people in Western world are either out of shape, or
| straight up obese. It makes sense that, that will have huge
| negative effects on fertility.
| wonder_er wrote:
| In some communities, weight gain is a down-stream effect of
| "metabolic syndrome", and the "solution" isn't to count
| calories or exercise more - it's to simply eat _differently_.
|
| Sugar is a particularly odious contributor to problems.
|
| Like OP, my wife and I also struggled with infertility for a
| few years (two miscarriages, years of doing everything
| "right", and not getting pregnant.) We're finally pregnant,
| and out of the most dangerous time period.
|
| Our traditional fertility doctor was pushing us hard to do
| IVF (we didn't want to), so we said "eh, thanks, we'll just
| take a break for a while."
|
| I asked the doc if there was any association between diet and
| pregnancy, and she said no. I facepalmed so hard.
|
| I wrote up notes on a book about sugar here:
| https://josh.works/notes-gary-taubes-case-against-sugar
|
| Might be worth skimming the notes to determine if it's worth
| reading the book.
|
| Oh, and for others trying to get pregnant, and curious to
| learn more about endocrine disruptors and the effects of diet
| and metabolic syndrome on fertility (for men and women) I'd
| recommend reading _It Starts With The Egg_ [0].
|
| This book walks you, the reader, though a lot of recent
| research, boils it down to a "do this/don't do that"
| checklist at the end of each chapter, it was perfect for my
| engineering brain.
|
| [0]: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21782260-it-starts-
| with-...
| jonplackett wrote:
| Really glad to hear you got pregnant. It makes me so happy
| now when people do after finding it so hard. It's a shame
| this info isn't more easily found by most people.
|
| I had the exact same experience with doctors just saying
| there was nothing a man can do to improve fertility. "It's
| just genetic".
|
| I also second the case against sugar. I should have called
| out refined sugar specifically in my list. That was one
| thing I cut out 100% even in ingredients lists (this is
| tough. It's in EVERYTHING. Even loads of savoury things
| that have zero business having sugar in).
|
| Side pondering - I've often wondered if McDonalds got a
| really raw deal from Super Size Me (great documentary) and
| that it was just the super size soft drinks that were the
| cause of problems - remember the guy in there who has eaten
| thousands of Big Macs? But he never had the drink. And he
| was thin as a rake (dunno how many kids he had though!)
| lukifer wrote:
| If I recall, not only did the Big Mac guy not consume
| sodas, but he never had the fries either (a perfect storm
| of salt, fat, and simple carbs).
| jonplackett wrote:
| Yes good point! Thought I'd guess there's vastly more
| sugar in the soda.
|
| Remember that couple in there two who went BLIND when
| they stopped drinking soda. Crazy.
| artificial wrote:
| I'll agree with you that it was an interesting film.
| Morgan Spurlock is an admitted alcoholic which casts
| doubts on the liver claim.
| jonplackett wrote:
| Didn't know that. They tested him before and after though
| right so would have been the difference they saw?
| avesi wrote:
| I'm shocked that any doctor's first recommendation isn't
| starting to do fertility awareness with ovulation test
| strips. I got pregnant on the first try with our second kid
| doing that. It was much more challenging for the first one
| and we even talked to a doctor who suggested fertility
| drugs. Thankfully, those weren't necessary in the end.
| Oddly, after we saw the doctor, we stopped trying as hard
| to conceive, and then it just happened on accident.
| adrr wrote:
| Curious on your age range. We also struggled with 3
| miscarriages and most of our friends had the exact similar
| issues and had to conceive via IVF. There were more IVF
| babies than natural pregnancies in my group of friends. We
| were lucky and didn't need to resort IVF. We all waited
| till we were past 35 to have kids. Our fertility doctor
| said age makes a huge a difference and professionals are
| waiting till later in their life to have kids which makes
| it harder conceive with a healthy embryo.
| beyondzero wrote:
| > Curious on your age range.
|
| This is going to be the dominant driver for female
| infertility. My wife and I waited until she was 32 and I
| was 40 and we struggled for two years. Eventually we
| talked to a doctor and both got tested. I was in the 98th
| percentile for sperm health, but unfortunately her egg
| production was closer to a woman 10 years older. We did
| IVF and got very lucky on the first try, with one viable
| embryo, who is now a curious and amazing four-year-old.
| lurquer wrote:
| > We all waited till we were past 35 to have kids.
|
| Many people were grandparents by that age 150 years ago.
|
| I too have many friends who waited until their 30s to
| have children. Most ended up in IVF (or adopting.)
|
| Fertility (not precisely the right term, but one commonly
| used) charts -- based on age -- are very steep. After the
| peak in the early to mid 20s, it plummets very quickly.
| For women, anyway.
|
| The low-sperm count issue, on the other hand, is very
| curious... not entirely sure if they have a grip on the
| true cause.
| blacktriangle wrote:
| Allopathic medicine is a disaster, the overwhelming
| majority of the modern medical establishment refuses to
| acknowledge that diet has anything to do with health, where
| in reality diet is easily the largest contributor.
| naebother wrote:
| No, I believe it's 53.18008%
| nvahalik wrote:
| We tried for several months but after starting and following
| a workout regimen for a few weeks... it just happened!
|
| It's amazing what a little exercise can do for your body!
| jonplackett wrote:
| It takes 3 months or so for sperm to grow, so on that time
| frame the exercise can't have made a difference to your
| sperm quality, it was probably fine already and you just
| had to wait to get lucky.
|
| Unless you've been trying for over a year that's just a
| perfectly normal amount of time for it to take anyway
| nvahalik wrote:
| I think it was maybe not on my side, specifically... but
| just don't tell my wife that. :)
| vagrantJin wrote:
| > following a workout regimen for a few weeks.
|
| This got a chuckle out of me sir.
|
| I imagine the sperm sent you a memorandum of protest about
| your unhealthy lifestyle. Sure it was an illegal strike but
| it worked.
| [deleted]
| jgalt212 wrote:
| We need to start smoking again to control the obesity. And
| stop taking anti-depressants.
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| Overall this is good advice for anyone, so I think it's the
| best first step for anyone who's inactive or overweight. I'm
| not a doctor but I suspect this is how a doctor would
| approach it too.
|
| I know it's anecdotal, but of my friends with fertility
| issues (3 couples who mentioned it to me), none are remotely
| overweight, they're regularly active, and they eat well. I'm
| sure inactivity and obesity are a major issue in regards to
| fertility, but I'm not personally seeing that.
| medium_burrito wrote:
| Yeah, I'm gonna take Obesity for $400, Alex.
|
| Sidenote: When someone overfeeds their animal as is common in
| America, would that be Obestiality?
| planetree wrote:
| Perhaps that has something to do with endocrine disruptors
| too.
| goatcode wrote:
| Is it possible that endocrine disruption could be related to
| issues with physical fitness too? There are many factors, but
| this could also be one, perhaps.
| Frost1x wrote:
| While I tend to agree with you WRT to diet and exercise, I
| think this is a secondary issue to what's being described
| here, similar to how I think modern science and technology
| has skewed the natural selection process with a bias that may
| select for undesirable attributes. Some of this bias may be
| for good intentions (allowing less fertile couples to
| conceive) while some may have questionable outcomes
| (selection based purely on socioeconomic status). Again, I
| think these are separate issues. Efforts I worked with looked
| at effects of contaminants such as manganese artificially
| introduced in natural water systems but that's just one,
| there's dozens of concern.
|
| The issue discussed in this article has quite a few
| biologists I've interacted with concerned which deal with
| products we redistribute or manufacturer back into the
| environment that may be causing these issues. Endocrine
| disruption is occurring in other species in the wild less or
| not clearly effected by the issues described above (selection
| bias, cultural biases in exercise/diet, etc.), and for all
| intents and purposes, seem to be going along with a sort of
| survival of the fittest model yet they're still having
| endocrine issues.
|
| In the anthropocene era, it's quite possible some of our
| behaviors are causing this and it wouldn't be the first time:
| lead and CFCs come to mind in the past. We have what appears
| to be a smoking gun, but we still haven't identified the
| shooter. We should definitely improve the factors that we can
| like diet and exercise and look to remedy socioeconomic
| selection biases for reproduction but the issue at hand may
| be one you can't simply diet and exercise your way out of and
| we need to continue to investigate it and find the root
| cause.
| calvinmorrison wrote:
| "Some of this bias may be for good intentions (allowing
| less fertile couples to conceive) while some may have
| questionable outcomes (selection based purely on
| socioeconomic status)."
|
| First let's not anthropomorphize nature, or natural
| selection. But secondly, in 1st world countries, the more
| money you make, the less likely you are to have kids! We've
| done a terrible job at incentivizing couples to have kids
| since women have entered and made up a good part of the
| work force, and it's hard to blame someone in a good
| career, married to someone in a good career, to take off
| 10-15 prime years of their lives to have children.
|
| I think that waiting to have children until later (late
| 20's to early 30's) is a big problem in terms of fertility
| and successful child bearing. Unfortunately the human clock
| doesn't really jive with the "4 years of college, work a
| bit and then think about marriage and kids".
|
| I don't have a conclusion except we might want to think
| about increasing the birth rates among high and medium
| earners in our populations where they are struggling, lest
| we become like Japan or other countries (some in Europe
| which depend on importing labor in order to satisfy demand)
| greenonions wrote:
| Shocking to think that our society would discount the
| future for the present...
|
| On a serious note however, babies and a growing
| population is an enormous advantage to a nation. I would
| think it would be massively popular to increase benefits
| to those who are having children. Full disclosure, I
| found out my wife is pregnant yesterday, but still.
| dahfizz wrote:
| You want to encourage reproduction? Sounds incredibly
| homophobic to me. I'm going to call your employer and
| complain about you.
|
| /s
| tenebrisalietum wrote:
| Babies and a growing population is an enormous advantage
| only if there are enough resources for everyone and they
| are distributed in such a form that does not end up cause
| social infighting. Otherwise it just contributes to
| instability.
|
| There are also women who are infertile due to no fault of
| their own (e.g. cancer, etc.), why should they be
| excluded from any resources whatsoever due to something
| that is not their fault?
| irscott wrote:
| Hey congratulations!
| greenonions wrote:
| Thank you!
| flerchin wrote:
| I feel like a wealthier and wealthier population, slowly
| shrinking, might be the sustainable future we need. Yes
| there will be challenges, but geometric, or even linear,
| population growth of the human species is not
| sustainable.
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| I am not necessarily disagreeing but you're description
| matches closely to one of the distopian worlds in
| Asimov's Foundation Series.
|
| 'Solaria' is this planet of abundance with strict
| population controls and where robots do all the hard work
| and wealthy generation for their owners.
| Sunspark wrote:
| I often wonder if it's something like car tire dust. All
| those vehicles eroding away the tire material which then
| goes into the air, soil and water. It goes somewhere.
| Frost1x wrote:
| This falls under the umbrella of "particulate matter" and
| is studied quite a bit. I'm not that familiar with
| particulates from road dust (specifically from tire
| erosion), but particulate matter is frequently studied
| (though not as much for endocrine disruption, at least
| not that I am familiar with):
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Particulates
| mediaman wrote:
| Exactly that was found to be responsible for mass
| killings of salmon in the Puget Sound, and the consequent
| deaths of orcas and other wildlife.
|
| A rubberizer additive put in tires was getting atomized
| and then washed off into the streams. It makes salmon
| swim in circles until they die.
|
| Does it do anything to people? We don't know.
| FooBarBizBazz wrote:
| > swim in circles until they die
|
| Quite a metaphor when applied to people.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| > modern science and technology has skewed the natural
| selection process with a bias that may select for
| undesirable attributes
|
| But that's hardly "modern" at all. Any improvement since
| the dawn of time that increases survivability for any
| creature that otherwise could not have lived and bred
| without it would lead to that result. Where does one draw
| the line?
| jonplackett wrote:
| Absolutely agree that being generally healthy will make a
| difference.
|
| But what if you aren't over weight and already fairly
| healthy, like I was?
|
| Then you have to look at other things too.
| drpgq wrote:
| If you had to say what was the best intervention?
| jonplackett wrote:
| Unfortunately, I have no idea. I just did EVERYTHING. I
| was more concerned with making a baby than figuring out
| exactly what worked and what didn't. There are just so
| many potential things it would require a lot of testing
| to know.
| yortpyperty wrote:
| ah the old miracle of life.
| YinglingLight wrote:
| I'll hold off on my order of the new Impossible Boner from
| Burger King.
| acdha wrote:
| > Weight loss and proper exercise will probably deliver 99%
| of the improvements for 99% of the people.
|
| In addition to be factually incorrect, consider how what you
| said sounds to the many people who are healthy, active but
| are having problems with something they thought would be
| easy. This is very stressful for many people, seeming
| especially cruel after years of worrying about accidental
| pregnancy, and the medical treatments are a figurative (and
| often literal) pain in the ass. Unqualified strangers taking
| the opportunity to offer judgmental "advice" is not something
| anyone wants even in general, and it's certainly not more
| appropriate in this situation.
|
| We spent about 5 years on this (and have a great 3yo). If
| anyone reading this has questions, feel free to ask.
| tabtab wrote:
| I used to be really chubby, and increasing exercise barely
| changed it. My body decided to randomly change one day and
| the problem mostly went away. The body just plain has a
| mind of it's own.
|
| But we are also not designed for desk jobs. Most of our
| ancestors sweated on farms or in quarries. One of the best
| pieces of evidence against Intelligent Design is that the
| designer forgot to design us for desk jobs.
| matchbok wrote:
| Being offended about someone saying obesity is bad for you
| is nonsense. Fine, someone is offended. Oh well.
|
| And it is true - most issues are related to weight.
| rhinoceraptor wrote:
| At least in men, there is a very clear mechanism. If you
| have excess body fat, your aromatase may be overexpressed,
| and if so, you will convert more of your testosterone to
| estradiol. This interacts with the hypothalamus' negative
| feedback loop, lowering your GnRH, (and therefore your
| LH/FSH) making you less fertile and lowering your
| testosterone until homeostasis is achieved.
| acdha wrote:
| Note that I wasn't saying that it wasn't _ever_ true --
| only the 99% hyperbole. It'd be awesome if the solution
| was that simple and most of the couples I know would love
| to have something which could be done with that level of
| difficulty, expense, and personal risk.
| hojjat12000 wrote:
| I was recently watching a video on Doublespeak[0], one of
| the types of doublespeak is to bombard the audience with
| technical jargon which means you automatically win,
| unless they know more technical terms than you do! In
| your case, your comment does not mean anything to me (or
| probably 99% of the HN users). Instead of this, you could
| at least cite a reputable source for this claim, this
| would be 100 times more effective and also useful for the
| readers. Cheers.
|
| [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qP07oyFTRXc
| rargulati wrote:
| rhinoceraptor gave such a clear explanation of the
| process, that I'd honestly pay for an entire set of bio
| and chem mechanic breakdowns prepared by them.
| rhinoceraptor wrote:
| I get that it's slightly esoteric, but this is all pretty
| basic biochem/endocrinology.
|
| Here's a small study that demonstrates that losing weight
| can increase fertility:
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3177768/
|
| Additionally, this mechanism is why drugs like clomifene
| and anastrazole work for male infertility.
| teachrdan wrote:
| Ha, "pretty basic biochem/endocrinology", followed by a
| link to a 10-year-old study of 43 men which concludes:
|
| "This study found obesity to be associated with poor
| semen quality and altered reproductive hormonal profile.
| Weight loss may potentially lead to improvement in semen
| quality. Whether the improvement is a result of the
| reduction in body weight per se or improved lifestyles
| remains unknown."
| cwkoss wrote:
| I think your comment, particularly your use of the phrase
| "bombard the audience with technical jargon", is a much
| better example of double speak than then comment you're
| replying to.
| Animats wrote:
| It's just bio terminology. I can't tell if it's correct
| biology but the words are neither nonsense nor obscure.
| hojjat12000 wrote:
| I did not say they are nonsense, or obscure. I said
| "technical jargon".
|
| I said to most of the audience, this doesn't mean
| anything, and to those that this means something, they
| probably already know this anyways.
|
| So, for the general public (non-biologists) you have to
| either explain it differently (at least don't use
| acronyms). or at least cite a reputable website so that
| we, normies, know you are not trolling!
| cwkoss wrote:
| This is a forum for technical discussion. Use google if
| you want to to understand something and you don't.
|
| It is unreasonable and not the goal of this forum use a
| level of discourse here so that all comments can be
| understood by general public. This a bunch of nerds
| chatting, not US Weekly.
| pocketgrok wrote:
| I get what you're saying but I don't think that's what's
| happening here at all. His main statement is that there's
| an biological explanation which is perfectly
| comprehensible. Backing it with a link instead of stating
| the explanation himself may be preferable but that
| doesn't mean he did it to shut anyone down or that it
| should have that affect.
| hojjat12000 wrote:
| I understand that and I really really want to believe
| them. But this biological explanation could be obvious
| (to a biologist) or could be heavily controversial (among
| biologists). A reputable source would be helpful for us
| the non-biologist to know that this is either common
| knowledge or this is the SOTA, recent breakthrough, or
| simply disputed theory. That's what I was trying to say.
| Cheers.
| mountainb wrote:
| It's not that esoteric... spend the same amount of time
| you did on watching that Youtube video on reading about
| the topic. Alternatively, search for questions on Youtube
| and you will have a similar explanation read out to you
| from a selection of 40,000 different bodybuilders.
| emptyfile wrote:
| If you're fat your testosterone will be low which is bad
| for a whole lot of reasons, including being infertile.
|
| See, I understood it, and English isn't even my first
| language. Scary thought that 99% of users on this site
| are dumber then me.
| hojjat12000 wrote:
| Did you really? You understood the "very clear
| mechanism"? Can you repeat the mechanism? Do you know
| what GnRH and LH/FSH are?
|
| Does this comment prove to you that there is a biological
| explanation? Or does it say some technical terms that
| might be disputed? Maybe only a small portion of
| biologists think this way and the majority disagree!
|
| I understand the English part! What I'm saying is this
| comment without a source doesn't prove a "very clear
| mechanism".
| exolymph wrote:
| You can't outsource your judgment. Do the research
| yourself if you want to understand something.
| 74d-fe6-2c6 wrote:
| If those things are bad for sperm count I'd expect them to be
| bad for the rest of the body as well. Sperm count is probably
| just a convenient metric which reveals the detrimental impact.
| nimbleal wrote:
| In my (layman's) review of related literature, this seems to
| be the case. I've gone through phases of looking into for eg.
| what might optimise lean mass, testosterone, longevity,
| decrease cancer risk, sperm count etc. It's all basically the
| same stuff. Unsurprising, really.
| Onewildgamer wrote:
| Can you share your study/findings? It'll help me and others
| who are searching for the same.
| nimbleal wrote:
| I'm afraid I don't have comprehensive notes, but it's not
| very complicated or new (perhaps disappointingly).
| Maintain a lowish bodyfat (10-15% for males, I think
| 20-30% for females), consume sufficient nutrients
| (including non-famous ones like k2) but lower-than-
| you'd-think calories, get enough but maybe not too much
| sleep, minimise stress, avoid endocrine disrupters
| (though if memory serves evidence here is thin), cold and
| hot treatments both have potential benefits (e.g suana),
| exercise is good (both aerobic and resistance). Fasting
| and/or low carb can improve the efficacy of radiotherapy
| in cancer treatment. Things like that.
| xkv wrote:
| Cannabis was a big factor for me. My sperm morphology improved
| after I ceased using it. Anecdotal, but there are a few studies
| that support the idea (cannabis in general doesn't have a lot
| of studies because it is a Schedule 1).
|
| If you're a heavy user, it can't hurt to stop while you're
| trying, and it may help. (I don't see it mentioned often in
| these discussions.)
|
| 1. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31267718/
|
| 2. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30916627/
| fertilitythrow1 wrote:
| throwaway due to personal health details:
|
| Similar anecdote from a UK-based late-30s guy with a BMI in the
| 30ish range:
|
| - no background health/illness issues. Non-smoker, occasional
| drinker (2-3 glasses a week).
|
| - trouble with getting pregnant - checks on female were all
| A-ok.
|
| - sperm analysis on me done.
|
| - count & motability fine.
|
| - morphology was low at 1% good-forms (minimum is IIRC 3% or
| above).
|
| Several months later and re-tested: morphology was then at 4% -
| count & motability largely unchanged. DNA fragmentation was
| "normal" but not amazing (not tested initially)
|
| What I did:
|
| - significantly upped my standing desk usage - from sporadic
| use a few times a week, to perhaps 25-50% of every working day
| at a standing desk.
|
| - changed underwear from tight-fitting "trunks" to looser
| "jersey" (not boxers - personally I hate boxers)
|
| - slept naked instead of wearing trunks.
|
| - almost entirely eliminated alcohol and caffeine, apart from
| the odd glass/cup maybe once or twice a month.
|
| - anti-oxidant tablets ("condensyl") taken daily
|
| Notable:
|
| - exercise & weight largely unchanged (I ran a few KMs maybe
| once or twice a week - this remained unchanged)
|
| - diet (apart from caffeine and alcohol) largely unchanged -
| perhaps some small mild "improvements" in cutting back on sugar
| & fat and having more veg but nothing drastic or wildly
| different really.
|
| I now have a naturally conceived 1 year old boy. Pregnancy +
| birth + delivery totally normal, baby all A-ok. It can happen -
| don't loose faith if the results are "bad". Good luck.
| jonplackett wrote:
| Hey thanks for replying and massive congrats on the little
| guy!
|
| Weird how similar that was to me. Wonder how many other
| people there are like this where just that bit of advice +
| minor action could have made such a big difference to their
| lives instead of being told there's nothing they can do.
|
| Keep spreading the word!
| ip26 wrote:
| To the many people arguing about mobile phone radiation - just
| move your phone to your back pocket & move on with your life.
| Your body will act as a shield. Will it matter? Maybe. Maybe
| not. Now go think about something else.
|
| If you need something else to think about: non-antibacterial
| soap is better anyway, and a RO filter is less than $200.
|
| Ok, NOW go do something else.
| gremlinsinc wrote:
| We had to use donor sperm, and even then we had 8 miscarriages
| and 8 rounds of ivf. Every time it was at 5 weeks and 5 days.
| Doctor finally figured out Wife had an autoimmune disorder
| (presumed) and 10 mg of prednisone during first trimester
| solved it, for the next 2 out of 3 ivf cycles to get our 2
| little boys. She had cancer cells though so had to have a full
| hysterectomy so we're likely done unless we adopt now...
|
| It was horrible and miserable but our boys are wonderful and
| amazing. So it was worth it. Honestly, I'd given up and really
| was just "okay" with things but it meant "more" to wife her
| being Mormon (me ex-mormon) there's some cultural stuff there.
| Now that I'm a dad though, wouldn't trade it for anything -
| love my boys and have grown a ton since having them, I can't
| even explain how life is different as a dad and before having
| kids.
|
| TLDR: Sometimes simple things like 10mg of a steroid to stunt
| immune system can solve the issue, if you have a recurring
| miscarriages anyways.
| fertilitythrow1 wrote:
| Similar for us - trouble conceiving and a miscarriage. Months
| spent improving sperm. All conventional checks on mother came
| back as fine - "keep trying!" they kept telling us, while
| writing "unexplained infertility" on our medical records.
|
| Still nothing happening. IVF was on the horizon, but a
| private consultant identified some trouble with "natural
| killer" cells in mother. No other issues with mother (no
| cancer like parent post)
|
| Prednisolone (IIRC) and some lipid infusions and baby was
| conceived and delivered naturally. Drugs cost maybe PS80 a
| month (although all the diagnostic checks and stuff was much
| more - start to finish (including like 12 ultrasound checks
| and multiple sessions with the consultants) we spent perhaps
| about PS8-10K) - conceived on second month of trying, after
| years of nothing apart from a miscarriage and intense
| sadness.
|
| Happy customer - no other relation: http://crpclinic.co.uk
| riffraff wrote:
| I have nothing to add to this topic, but I just want to send
| you a virtual hug, we had one miscarriage and it was bad, I
| can't even imagine how you'd feel after 8.
| gspr wrote:
| > radiation
|
| I don't doubt much of what you're saying, but is there any
| evidence to support that modern life exposes you to any more
| harmful radiation than life in the past did?
| giantg2 wrote:
| Yes, there have been numerous studies showing that the radio
| frequencies (radiation) used by cell phones and wifi are
| correlated (maybe causative, but not 100% sure) to reduced
| sperm count and quality. This is especially true when you
| have your phone in your pocket or your laptop on your lap.
|
| Stuff like wifi and cellphones were not a thing in the past.
| There just weren't many consumer RF products a generation or
| two ago - phones had cords, there was no wifi or even
| internet, no bluetooth headphones or refrigerators, etc. Most
| of the RF radiation was produced by commerical or government
| sources (plus some ham radio), such as FM, AM, and military
| communications. This generally meant that you were far away
| from the source, which means they where mostly using
| different wavelengths and the power you recieved was lower
| (you quadruple power loss when doubling distance). Now days,
| you have multiple cell phones in your home, wifi at home and
| work (work can really blast you with all the access points
| they seem to over-install), bluetooth and a cell card in many
| new cars, and IoT devices seemingly everywhere.
|
| Not to mention it seems we have more commercial exposure too.
| We have GPS, satellite TV, StarLink, cell towers, etc all
| vying for 100% coverage. However, I didn't look up the
| wavelengths, so these might not be an issue, or might cause
| some other kind of issue. I guess I'm just saying it should
| be no surprise that sperm count and quality is decreasing if
| we know that certain RF is linked to it and we are increasing
| that RF exposure.
| gspr wrote:
| > Yes, there have been numerous studies showing that the
| radio frequencies (radiation) used by cell phones and wifi
| are correlated (maybe causative, but not 100% sure) to
| reduced sperm count and quality.
|
| Do you have some references?
|
| > This is especially true when you have your phone in your
| pocket or your laptop on your lap.
|
| Are you sure you're not mixing up heat and radiation here?
| OK, technically radiative heat is radiation, but surely
| that's not what you meant. Sitting outside on a warm day
| with a pillow on your crotch probably isn't good for your
| sperm either, but it doesn't seem honest to chalk that up
| to radiation (even though technically radiative may have
| warmed you in the first place).
|
| > Not to mention it seems we have more commercial exposure
| too. We have GPS, satellite TV, StarLink, cell towers, etc
| all vying for 100% coverage. However, I didn't look up the
| wavelengths, so these might not be an issue, or might cause
| some other kind of issue.
|
| I'm sorry, this is pure speculation unless you can back it
| up by something. "We didn't have all these things in the
| past" isn't an argument for anything. It's like claiming
| that the cumulative number of HN comments is rising while
| sperm quality is decreasing, hence HN is killing sperm.
|
| > I guess I'm just saying it should be no surprise that
| sperm count and quality is decreasing if we know that
| certain RF is linked to it and we are increasing that RF
| exposure.
|
| Do we know that _those_ kinds of RF are linked to it?
| X-rays to your balls, sure! But GPS and cellphones?
| Evidence, please.
| giantg2 wrote:
| "Do you have some references?"
|
| Here's one of many if you google. https://natural-
| fertility-info.com/study-wi-fi-laptop-comput...
|
| "Are you sure you're not mixing up heat and radiation
| here?"
|
| I'm not. If you look at my other statements in my
| comment, you will see that distance plays an important
| part in RF exposure. Energy dissipates rapidly and is
| generally minimal beyond 6' when we are talking about
| sub-watt consumer devices.
|
| "Not to mention it seems we have more commercial exposure
| too. We have GPS, satellite TV, StarLink, cell towers,
| etc all vying for 100% coverage. _However, I didn 't look
| up the wavelengths, so these might not be an issue, or
| might cause some other kind of issue._"
|
| You quoted me in the above and complained about
| speculation. You can see in the italics that I
| acknowledge that I don't know if the distant transmitters
| cause problems or not.
|
| "Do we know that those kinds of RF are linked to it?
| X-rays to your balls, sure! But GPS and cellphones?
| Evidence, please."
|
| I've already linked one study. I'm not going to google
| everything for you. You can us PubMed too.
|
| I'd also like to ask where your evidence is that it is
| harmless? Did you also miss the study that said specific
| brain cancer incidence is raised by holding a cell phone
| to your head? It seems your position that it's all
| harmless is just speculation.
|
| https://www.consumerreports.org/cell-phones/what-the-
| cell-ph...
| wittyreference wrote:
| > Here's one of many if you google. https://natural-
| fertility-info.com/study-wi-fi-laptop-comput...
|
| So, a quick rebuttal to this trash blog post recounting a
| trash publication. This is a cut-and-paste from a real
| rebuttal (Dore & Chignol, Fertility & Sterility, 2012),
| transcribed here for easy browsing. Link at the end:
|
| "We think that the evidence presented in this article
| cannot support the claim that the observed effects are
| non-thermal and caused by exposure to a Wi-Fi
| radiofrequency electromagnetic field."
|
| 1. Keeping constant the temperature under the computer by
| an air conditioning system is not sufficient to ensure
| homo-geneity of the temperatures within the experimental
| area, be-cause the heat source from the laptop is not
| homogenous itself, and to exclude that there is no local
| variation in the samples temperatures. If the exposure
| design can be justified by the desire of being as close
| as possible to the actual conditions of use of a lap-top
| computer, the dosimetry used in these experiments is much
| too simplistic. There is no indication of the homogeneity
| of the field under the laptop, which may greatly depend
| upon the location of the Wi-Fi antenna within the
| computer.
|
| 2. The control samples,''kept in another room away
| fromany computers or electronic devices,''were not
| actually keptunder identical conditions. A more suitable
| experimental de-sign would have been a sham exposure
| design in which con-trol samples would have been exposed
| under the sameactively working computer, but with its Wi-
| Fi emission turned off.
|
| 3. Moreover, Avendano et al. state that''[radiofrequency
| electromagnetic waves] from mobile phones may cause DNA
| damage''and that''research has shown negative
| consequences of electromagnetic fields on biological
| mechanisms,''and they cite in support of their contention
| a highly controversial article(cite2). Genotoxicity of
| radiofrequencies is not a matter of opinion:
| radiofrequency energy absorption cannot break DNA
| molecules, and it should be kept in mind that there is no
| known biologically plausible mechanism by which non-
| ionizing radio waves of low energy can disrupt
| DNA(cite3). Recently, while classifying radiofrequency
| electromagneticfields (RF-EMF) as''possibly carcinogenic
| to humans''(group2B), the International Agency for
| Research on Cancer Working Group reached the overall
| conclusion that there is only weak mechanistic evidence
| relevant to RF-EMF-induced cancer in humans(cite4)
|
| The conclusion of the rebuttal: "There is a serious
| message behind our rebuttal. Citing Avendano et
| al.(cite1) among the evidence of an association between
| Wi-Fi exposure and a genotoxic effect on humans perm
| would demonstrate how studies with an erroneous
| methodology can be used to support important public
| health claims and also the weakness of the evidence
| purporting to demonstrate a non thermal effect of Wi-Fi
| RF."
|
| cite2: Diem et al. 2005 Non-thermal DNA break-age by
| mobile-phone radiation (1800 MHz) in human fibroblasts
| and in trans-formed GFSH-R17 rat granulosa cells in
| vitro.
|
| cite3: Moulder at al. 2005, Mobile phones, mobil ephone
| base stations and cancer: a review.
|
| cite4: Baan et al. 2011, Carcinogenicity of
| radiofrequency electromagnetic fields
|
| Link: https://sci-hub.do/10.1016/j.fertnstert.2012.01.102
| giantg2 wrote:
| Plenty of info to choose from here instead of reading
| trash rebuttals that didn't attempt the replicate the
| study with the controls they are complaining about.
|
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=cell+phone+sperm+co
| unt
| gamblor956 wrote:
| One of the first results claims that using the internet
| resulted in a larger decrease to sperm count than using a
| cell phone.
|
| And all of the studies that claimed to show a link
| between cell phone use and decreased sperm were based on
| _surveys_ of patients at fertility clinics, or were based
| on subjecting rat testicles to 1000x the amount of
| radiation that a _human_ would encounter in the real
| world.
|
| You may want to rethink your citations.
| giantg2 wrote:
| I'm not saying it's the only cause, just that it's one of
| them. They're not exactly going to blast human testicles
| with radiation. These sort of animal tests and surveys
| (couple with clinical evaluation) are standard practice
| for many medical research topics.
|
| Where do you see the radiation level being 1000x? I see
| various studies using real cell phones on the market for
| between 2 and 6 hours per day.
| gspr wrote:
| > > "Do you have some references?" > > Here's one of many
| if you google. https://natural-fertility-info.com/study-
| wi-fi-laptop-comput...
|
| A blog post by "Dalene Barton - Certified Herbalist,
| Birth Doula". Lol, you've got to be kidding me?!
|
| > You quoted me in the above and complained about
| speculation. You can see in the italics that I
| acknowledge that I don't know if the distant transmitters
| cause problems or not.
|
| So why bring them up? Moreover: You also don't know if
| the close ones do. I mean, your herbalist does, but that
| doesn't count ;-)
|
| > I've already linked one study.
|
| "Study". Something peer-reviewed, please. It can be done
| by a herbalist if you insist, but it needs to be peer-
| reviewed by actual experts.
|
| > I'd also like to ask where your evidence is that it is
| harmless?
|
| That no harm has been found. The same class of evidence
| you rely on when you eat a carrot and wonder whether it's
| poisonous or not.
|
| > Did you also miss the study that said specific brain
| cancer incidence is raised by holding a cell phone to
| your head?
|
| Glanced at it now. Please correct tme if I'm wrong, but
| is it really true that that they did a study with n=90
| rats and used the occurrance of _2_ cases of tumors in
| them, versus 0 in the control, as evidence???
| giantg2 wrote:
| "A blog post by "Dalene Barton - Certified Herbalist,
| Birth Doula". Lol, you've got to be kidding me?!"
|
| I'm not citing the blog. The blog merely explains the
| results of the study. It is a peer reviewed study
| available through Elseiver.
|
| "That no harm has been found. The same class of evidence
| you rely on when you eat a carrot and wonder whether it's
| poisonous or not."
|
| Let's see your peer reviewed articles that prove it -
| that was the standard for evidence that you set in your
| comment.
|
| "Glanced at it now. Please correct tme if I'm wrong, but
| is it really true that that they did a study with n=90
| rats and used the occurrance of 2 cases of tumors in
| them, versus 0 in the control, as evidence???"
|
| I gave you one example. Please do some research of your
| own instead of just trolling.
|
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25738972/
| SigmundA wrote:
| Here is another later study that shows no correlation:
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5303122/
|
| There is a lot of speculation and no confirmed mechanism
| for a milliwatt microwave transmitter to damage human
| sperm.
|
| Would you be worried about a blinking led light near you?
| Thats the power levels we are dealing with and the
| visible light has much higher photon energy closer to
| ionizing being in the terahertz range.
|
| Meanwhile go take a nice walk outside under the 1000 watt
| per square meter nuclear fusion radiator that includes
| many watts of actual cancer causing near ionizing
| radiation.
| giantg2 wrote:
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=cell+phone+sperm+co
| unt
| M5x7wI3CmbEem10 wrote:
| what's the solution? cabin in the woods and commute to
| work, fewer IoT devices, keep phone out of pocket, and?
| giantg2 wrote:
| All I do is schedule wifi to turn off when I am typically
| sleeping, phone out of pocket when home, phone on speaker
| when using it, and I don't really have any IoT devices.
|
| I'm not saying everyone should do this, but that's what I
| do.
| BunsanSpace wrote:
| Non ionizing radiation doesn't have an effect on our bodies
| unless it's very high energy e.g. you're right next to a
| high powered transmitter (radio tower).
| giantg2 wrote:
| That's not exactly true. VHF can cause ocular issues due
| to heat buildup under the right circumstances. You can
| have this issue with extended use at relatively low power
| (<100 watts) if the distance is close (think ham sitting
| next to their antenna).
| SigmundA wrote:
| This is thermal heating which is the very well known
| mechanism for non ionizing radiation to affect the body
| (microwave oven cooking).
|
| Cell phones put out about 1000 times less power than your
| 100w ham radio. Which in itself is not enough to cause
| ocular heating damage unless perhaps it was within inches
| of your eye, I have never seen a case of it caused at
| that power level please point me to citations.
|
| Remember these are omni radiators only a small fraction
| of the 100w ham radio power would strike your eye even
| inches away and it would fall off with the inverse square
| law.
|
| Putting a 100w lightbulb against your eye would also
| cause damage or a 1 watt laser both due to ocular
| heating. This is all about the amount of wattage absorbed
| by your body tissue which is why exposure levels are
| rated in watts per kilogram, the more tissue the more
| power it takes to raise that tissues temperature to
| damaging levels. This is a why a focus laser with little
| power can cause damage vs a omni directional light or
| radio source.
| manmal wrote:
| Having a warm/hot laptop on your lap is definitely not a
| good idea for fertility.
| jandrese wrote:
| The above ground nuclear testing in the Atomic Age certainly
| increased background radiation levels.
| FieryTransition wrote:
| Cigarettes for once, can expose you to way more rads than
| what is healthy [0].
|
| [0] https://www.verywellmind.com/radioactive-chemicals-in-
| cigare...
| gspr wrote:
| Fair enough. I kinda forgot that smoking is still a thing.
| But it's been on a big decline for years, hasn't it? Surely
| this isn't some new and growing danger?
| FieryTransition wrote:
| Probably has, even though there's still a lot of people
| who smoke. Think it will be a while before it really can
| be considered a more rare occurrence/habit.
|
| Considering how many people still do it, it could be
| considered as part of our culture.
|
| Otherwise i don't know any sources of radiation. Besides
| some places where the atmosphere is getting thin, and
| getting skin cancer is very normal, like Australia.
| gspr wrote:
| > Besides some places where the atmosphere is getting
| thin, and getting skin cancer is very normal, like
| Australia.
|
| I thought the ozone situation had been getting a lot
| better since the 90s?
| FieryTransition wrote:
| It is getting better, but it won't really recover until
| 2050 to 2060's AFAIK. That said, there are other gasses
| which might still be bad to let into the atmosphere, so
| we still don't understand it a 100% There's also the
| ozone hole, which partly affects Australia [0], but
| mostly Antarctica. I think it is really interesting, that
| about 2/3 of people in Australia will get skin cancer at
| some point, and I've wondered whether it's due to the
| increased exposure to, what is essentially radiation, or
| just the mass migration of people who were originally not
| native to the region. Thus they don't handle the sun as
| well, as say, Aboriginals.
|
| [0] https://www.villageinframe.com/ozone-layer-hole-in-
| australia...
| Bombthecat wrote:
| You... avoided all that? How?
|
| You didn't wear underpants or what?
| Hendrikto wrote:
| One can wear underwear, just not tight-fitting. There is a
| reason balls are free-hanging. They should not get too warm.
| tubularhells wrote:
| Why would you need underwear when you could just freeball
| every day?
| xkv wrote:
| because denim
| MisterTea wrote:
| Some fabrics aren't kind to sensitive bits. I prefer to
| have cotton boxers between my bits and whatever rugged
| exterior cloth is worn.
| hypertele-Xii wrote:
| I'm not the parent poster, but here's my take:
|
| Heat - Live somewhere North. There's very little of it.
|
| Radiation - No wi-fi at home, put phone in breast pocket.
|
| Plastic, micro plastics - Never buy anything plastic, if
| possible. Buy food whole in paper bags from local market;
| prefer glass and carboard containers. Buy cotton/silk/etc
| clothing, never anything made of poly-anything.
|
| Tap water - Live where it's clean.
|
| Teflon - All my cookware and utensils are titanium, steel, or
| wood. No aluminium, no coatings.
|
| Antibacterial soap - Buy the simplest, free-est of additives
| soap you can, intended for sensitive skin and allergics. Wash
| clothes with Sapindus saponaria fruit ("soap berries") and
| vinegar.
|
| Underpants - Just don't wear them.
|
| An interesting side-effect of such a clean lifestyle is that
| a fungus clogs my drain about twice a year, since my
| graywater has no chemicals in it. Had to learn to take it
| apart and clean it :)
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| > No aluminium
|
| I missed that one, what is wrong with Aluminium for
| cookware? Can you point to any source on that?
| hypertele-Xii wrote:
| It's very mildly toxic. Acidic foods react with it and
| metal leaks into the food. It's why canned food says you
| should transfer it to another container after opening. I
| assume greater temperatures accelerate this process, as
| heat makes molecules move, though I'm no expert on
| crystalline structures in metals.
|
| Searching for "aluminium toxicity" will bring up many
| results.
|
| Titanium, on the other hand, is so safe to our bodies
| that it's used in surgical implants.
| driverdan wrote:
| > Radiation - No wi-fi at home, put phone in breast pocket.
|
| This is pseudoscience. Unless you're storing wifi devices
| next to your testicles they won't do anything, and in that
| case it's due to heating.
| mpfundstein wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Soy isn't that easy:
| 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.
| [deleted]
| nxpnsv wrote:
| It's interesting to look at such studies, here is an example:
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2721724/figure/.
| ..
|
| So if you have low BMI you improve sperm concentration if you
| eat soy 2-8 times a week? Less or more than that is worse?
| Data is not convincing, and it is easy to find studies which
| don't agree.
| chaostheory wrote:
| Isn't the difference in Asia because they eat less processed
| soy compared to the US and EU?
| arp242 wrote:
| I can't speak for other Asian countries, but here in
| Indonesia tofu and tempeh (fermented soybeans) are a lot
| more common than in Europe.
| jesperlang wrote:
| I was eating lots of miso, tofu and soy sauce when I lived
| in japan without issue. In europe i tried soy milk once and
| got an instant allergic reaction (itchy soar throat). The
| difference being soy milk is just soaked, ground up, boiled
| soy bean..
| StillBored wrote:
| This is where i think science has been failing us. I have
| a couple similar stories where I have various reactions
| to one product but not a very similar product from
| another vendor. When that happens it would be really
| helpful if there were a research lab/etc where one could
| show up with both products and basically say, product A
| does the following to me, while product B doesn't.
|
| The first time I really noticed this was ~15 years ago I
| was on a spinach salad kick that started when I purchased
| an organic pre-packaged salad kit (as In I was almost
| exclusively eating just spinach salad for a couple weeks
| because I really liked it and my kitchen was being
| remodeled). Anyway, those kits were quite expensive, so I
| switched to a cheaper non organic spinach and my own
| dressing. I started to have some pretty severe intestinal
| distress over a couple days, and swapped the spinach for
| a 3rd organic brand and the problem went away. But
| because the no organic brand was cheaper I bought a
| couple other bags assuming it was probably just a bad
| batch and I had gotten hit by a bacterial
| infection/whatever and it returned.
|
| So I've had similar issues with coffee (gotten ichy all
| over when I changed brands and couldn't figure it out for
| a couple months), and a few other products. My Dr
| describes me as "allergy prone" but its not as simple as
| I'm allergic to spinach, or coffee. I seem to have a low
| grade allergy to something that is sometimes present
| across multiple food sources. I suspect without any proof
| at this point its a pesticide or herbicide, since I seem
| to have far fewer reactions if I'm tending to stick with
| organic leafy vegetables, and away from crops which have
| traditionally used more industrial farming processes.
|
| If you look at the pesticide/herbicide studies what is
| abundantly clear in the US, that just like e-coli its
| hard to predict/track which foods are affected at any
| given point . The food growing and distribution system is
| to complex. So while a farmer may be following all the
| rules, he may be downwind (or whatever) of another farmer
| growing and spraying a different crop. Then his crop gets
| mixed into a larger batch and it goes complexly
| undetected because in low doses many of these products
| are considered non-harmful.
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| Someone once told me allergic reaction to soy may
| actually be allergic reaction to GMO soy, not soy per se.
|
| There may be very different stats from one country to
| another on how much GMO soy gets used.
| buildbot wrote:
| Can you link a study that shows GMO soy having different
| proteins that would cause a specific reaction vs. non
| gmo? Otherwise it seems like you are hear to just spread
| anti gmo fud, which really hurts actual discourse around
| GMOs.
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| I replied to one person who said they consumed a lot of
| soy in one situation with zero problem and then reacted
| really strongly and negatively to soy in another and I
| suggested a possible explanation, a possible difference
| between the two soy sources. I did so as food for thought
| for that one individual and I don't really care what
| anyone else thinks of the comment.
| petertodd wrote:
| They've also eaten soy for much longer than others, literally
| thousands of years(1) at this point. That's more than long
| enough to evolve countermeasures if it did have an effect.
| They also eat soy differently, mainly in products which are
| fermented.
|
| 1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soybean#History
| fpoling wrote:
| One does not need 1000 years to evolve. One generation
| where soy intolerance leads to death through
| famine/malnutrition is enough. That is why cultural
| differences are so important to take into account.
| maxerickson wrote:
| That first sentence is an awful way to kick off a comment
| about population genetics.
| hnuser123456 wrote:
| The point is if we make a population-wide change within a
| generation, we will see natural selection within the
| next. Not sure what your point is.
| lupire wrote:
| So when bullies bully people for eating tofu, they being
| especially stupid because tofu is the one form of soy that
| isn't "anti-masculine"?
| petertodd wrote:
| There are many types of tofu, only some of which are
| fermented: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tofu#Varieties
| jtdev wrote:
| They also ferment a great deal of the soy they consume.
| tracker1 wrote:
| I think a lot of it comes down to how it's processed...
| fermentation probably made it safer to consume over time.
|
| I think the aversion to dietary fat for the past 3
| generations combined with refined seed/bean oils has been
| hugely detrimental to human health as well. Not to mention,
| even with reductions, we still consume a massive amount of
| sugar per capita compared to pre-wwii levels.
| lupire wrote:
| Oils are dietary fats though?
| User23 wrote:
| Refined seed oils are synthetic chemicals that just
| happen to use seeds as a feedstock in a relatively novel
| chemical reaction.
|
| Yes one can quibble that cooking is a chemical reaction,
| but it's one that is both simple and that we're long
| since evolved to tolerate.
|
| I stick to mechanically produced vegetable oils and
| animal fats. It's not only healthier but it tastes better
| too.
|
| However, a healthy diet depends a great deal on your
| race. A traditional Inuit diet is observably healthy for
| Inuit persons, but probably best avoided by people like
| me. However there are no humans that are evolved to eat
| seed oils.
| yknuri wrote:
| Where does one find mechanically produced vegetable oils?
| I'm piqued, thanks in advance.
| klyrs wrote:
| Olive oil is the most obvious one
| i_haz_rabies wrote:
| Big mechanical squishers squishing olives.
| jackyinger wrote:
| Look for "expeller pressed" on seed oils (canola, etc).
|
| Now I see why they're advertising the method of
| extraction...
| JTbane wrote:
| Maybe I'm being pedantic, but most of the stuff done to
| refined oils are physical processes, not chemical
| macNchz wrote:
| > However there are no humans that are evolved to eat
| seed oils.
|
| I am cautious about these sorts of issues and typically
| buy the least processed oils (and foods in general) that
| I can find, however it is my understanding that humans
| around the world have been producing and eating
| (mechanically expressed) sesame seed oil for thousands of
| years. I can't say whether that has any impact on whether
| people are "evolved to eat it", but it's certainly not
| something new:
| https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF02859136
| User23 wrote:
| You're right. I consider chemically extracted the
| default, but I should have been explicit that I didn't
| mean mechanically expressed seed oils.
| jonplackett wrote:
| It's crazy isn't it. So many foods they market as 'low
| fat' they just took out the good fat and replaced it with
| sugar- which your body immediately turns into fat anyway,
| and messes up your hormones and insulin sensitivity along
| the way.
|
| And the only oil we've introduced into the diet is trans
| fat which the body mistakes for good fat and just starts
| building stuff with it, and then it all breaks down and
| you get heart disease.
|
| You couldn't make it up
| dalbasal wrote:
| >> aversion to dietary fat for the past 3 generations
| combined with refined seed/bean oils
|
| Aye... This is probably the first
| medically/scientifically prescribed diet for society at
| large and it has been a disaster.
| csharptwdec19 wrote:
| And the worst thing is, as we've learned from Big
| Tobacco, They're -never- going to admit it. Nestle,
| Kraft, etc. will stop at nothing to make sure they aren't
| liable for the way they cut costs at the expense of
| generations of human beings health.
| dalbasal wrote:
| They're definitely bad actors, but the whole thing is/was
| much bigger than just packaged food companies. National
| medical authorities. Your local doctor or nutritionist.
| The food pyramid hanging in your classroom.
|
| We're not good at mea culpas and the baggage hangs
| around.
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| _Almost 95 percent of the soybeans grown in the U.S. are
| genetically modified._
|
| https://www.thedailymeal.com/travel/8-most-genetically-
| modif...
|
| _In 2007, over half the world's soybean crop was
| genetically modified; a higher percentage than any other
| crop._
|
| https://worldofgenetics.weebly.com/genetically-modified-
| soyb...
|
| Asians are probably eating less GMO soy (than Americans)
| and we don't really know what those genetic modifications
| do in terms of human health. They are typically made to
| improve profit in some fashion, not to improve human
| health.
| mfer wrote:
| GMO soy is treated with different pesticides than non-
| GMO. What we eat still has some of the pesticide in it.
| It's worth a considering the impact of the pesticide, too
| creata wrote:
| > Asians are probably eating less GMO soy
|
| I may be out of the loop here, but why do you say that?
| Are Asians particularly more GMO-averse than Americans?
| ex_amazon_sde wrote:
| Yes
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| I say that based on the two data points I quoted with
| sources. Presumably 'more than half' is less than 95
| percent in most cases.
| creata wrote:
| You're probably right. I just wasn't sure that production
| and consumption of GMO soy would be so neatly linked like
| that, because so much of that soy is going to livestock.
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| Yeah, the lack of certainty of a conclusion is why the
| word "probably" is in that sentence. It's a qualifier. It
| indicates I don't actually know for certain and this is
| guess work. (The guess work preceded the googling up of
| hand-wavy numbers. It's an internet discussion, not a
| defense of a PhD dissertation.)
| creata wrote:
| I didn't suggest otherwise.
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| Sorry, my 17 year old high school self seems to be alive
| and well, after all these years. (Insert jokes about my
| dotage.)
| eyko wrote:
| > They are typically made to improve profit in some
| fashion, not to improve human health.
|
| The main goals of GMOs are to increase yield and protect
| against disease / pests, which is practically the same
| goal we've had for thousands of years of crop
| domestication. Take for instance wild pre-domesticated
| maize vs present day non-GMO maize[1] and you'll see what
| "natural" crop selection does. Not only do we select for
| strains that are healthier and with more defenses, we
| also select strains that give us more bang for buck. Over
| the years, we've also selected for: texture, size,
| adaptability to different climates and soil compositions,
| lower concentration of toxic compounds, etc. Cassava and
| potatoes, for instance, can be deadly in their "natural"
| variety, and needed some "help" to get to the varieties
| we eat today. GMOs are simply the result of applying
| modern science in combination with what we've learnt from
| different cultures over thousands of years, to speed this
| process and hopefully prevent famine and starvation.
|
| I'm not saying all GMOs are good for you, but I just
| wanted to counter this idea that we don't know what
| effects GMOs have on us -- we've been eating GMOs for
| millenia. _Edit: I should also strain that I fully
| support questioning GMOs and holding them to a high
| standard as a society, especially when the modifications
| are made for reasons which are to a high degree simply
| for profit. One example of that would be crops that are
| engineered to be infertile / yield no seeds._
|
| PS: I'm more concerned about chemical pesticides,
| especially in the scale at which they're used.
| Microplastics, heavy metals, soil depletion, etc. Many
| modern agricultural practices are _not good_ for the
| environment, objectively speaking. But I wouldn 't just
| blindly lump GMO in the same group _just because_ it 's
| also modern.
|
| 1. https://www.newswise.com/articles/tiny-genetic-tweak-
| unlocke...
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| _we 've been eating GMOs for millenia._
|
| That's a little like saying "There's zero difference
| between traditional animal husbandry and cloning."
|
| Sorry, I think there is a meaningful distinction between
| traditional human intervention in plant varieties and the
| more recent intervention called GMO. Most of the world
| seems to agree that there is a distinction, enough so
| that we invented new language for what it is we are
| doing.
|
| Edit in response to your edit:
|
| _But I wouldn 't just blindly lump GMO in the same group
| just because it's also modern._
|
| That's an ugly thing to say and it's not far from a
| personal attack. There's no _blindness_ on my part. I 'm
| not _lumping_ anything in just because it 's modern.
|
| I have a genetic disorder and pay enormous attention to
| the details of my diet because of it. I react poorly to
| soy products. Research and experience suggest that my
| firsthand negative experiences with soy may be related to
| the fact that most soy in the US is GMO.
|
| My views here have nothing at all to do with unfounded
| assumptions, ridiculous neurotic views of "modern" things
| or anything of the sort.
| eyko wrote:
| My apologies. When I added the "blindly lump ..."
| sentence, I didn't wasn't replying directly at your
| comment, but rather in reference to the worrying trend
| amongst anti-gmo movements to lump any GMO related
| practices in the same basket.
|
| > That's a little like saying "There's zero difference
| between traditional animal husbandry and cloning."
|
| This is a very interesting topic, actually! I can't
| comment on animal husbandry (much less dolly style
| cloning), but cutting (cloning) _is_ a very common way to
| propagate crops, and has been done for longer than we
| care to know. It 's also the natural way in which some
| plants and fungi propagate. There are many benefits to
| cloning, but there are also downsides: when disease
| affects one, it affects all your clones. You can protect
| against that by seed propagation, crossing, etc, but then
| you have a less predictable and consistent crop, which in
| the modern market is sometimes frowned upon.
|
| I know most farmers will pick consistency over variety
| any time of the day because they have to make a living,
| and most people won't buy greenish tomatoes, yellow or
| green oranges, white artichokes, etc. People also expect
| their fruits and veggies to taste as expected, so it's
| difficult to sell mixed variants.
|
| Note: I should also say I'm from a family of farmers so
| I'm probably biased towards defending our practices -- in
| our case we grow citruses, stone fruits, artichokes,
| aubergines, melons, etc. (not big-agro scale, think more
| cooperatives in rural Spain), and I do have my personal
| opinions on traditional techniques vs. modern vs. big-ag,
| use of pesticides, overstressing the soils, etc. I'm also
| from an area that has suffered bad droughts and
| deforestation over generations so I'm also not one to
| romanticize about traditional farming methods and some
| traditional attitudes. Take whatever I say with a pinch
| or more of salt!
| com2kid wrote:
| > Sorry, I think there is a meaningful distinction
| between traditional human intervention in plant varieties
| and the more recent intervention called GMO.
|
| One is a semi-random process where an unknown (but
| large!) number of genes are modified in the hopes of
| getting a few desired good traits to express themselves.
|
| The other is a targeted change to the smallest number of
| genes to get a single desired good trait to be expressed.
|
| Imagine you are going in for surgery to remove a lump,
| and the doctor tells you there are two options, he can
| cut out 20 lumps of flesh, and good chance he'll get the
| one you want removed, or he can remove just the lump that
| is causing a problem.
|
| Which of the two options would you choose?
|
| GMO is the later. Traditional breeding is the former.
|
| If people want to criticize WHAT modification was done
| via GMO, great! Lots of good debate there, maybe
| inserting some particular gene is a bad idea. But let's
| have that discussion, not "all GMO is bad!"
|
| Because "all GMO is bad" is nonsensical. GMO isn't some
| process that turns food into poison. It just changes it,
| in a more controlled way than breeding changes it.
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| _Because "all GMO is bad" is nonsensical._
|
| That's an extremely gross misinterpretation of my point
| which boils down to "The effects may be different on
| different populations due to variables you are
| overlooking, such as (for example) they could be eating
| fundamentally different plants that happen to go by the
| same name."
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26235356
|
| The degree to which people actively twist my comments to
| railroad me with their bizarre garbage makes it
| enormously difficult to participate here in good faith at
| all. I should probably go get some other hobby and stop
| wasting my time on a bunch of people hellbent on trying
| to make me look like a nutter no matter how mild and
| reasonable a point I am trying to make.
| stickfigure wrote:
| Africanized "killer" bees are a result of traditional
| crossbreeding techniques gone awry. Don't romanticize
| traditional agriculture; mashing up genes randomly is not
| an inherently safer process.
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| I'm not romanticizing anything.
|
| GMO is relatively new. We know a thimbleful of
| information about nutrition and health generally. We know
| even less than that about what more recent inventions do
| to the human body because there is simply less of a track
| record and time span in which to determine meaningful
| data and conclusions.
|
| Saying "We don't know what this new thing does to our
| health" in no way romanticizes anything. It doesn't even
| implicitly suggest we know a heckuva a whole lot about
| the old thing. But the old thing is probably not going to
| randomly open up some metaphorical worm hole to some
| bizarre outcome and maybe the new thing will and we just
| haven't had enough of a track record to notice yet.
|
| Thalidomide was briefly prescribed to pregnant women for
| nausea until they began having babies missing limbs
| because of it.
| buildbot wrote:
| GMO isn't that new is it? At this point the field is over
| half a century old? Right thaolidomide was really bad and
| we stopped using right away. GMOs enable us to support 7
| billion people, without improved yields the world would
| probably starve. It's good to question, but Questioning
| is different than fear mongering, there are very few
| wormholes
| jononor wrote:
| Did you mean half a century? The effects of nutrition on
| a population cannot be very well established in less than
| a decade...
| buildbot wrote:
| I did, thank you! Very true 5 years wouldn't be very long
| at all.
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| Food that subtly messes you up is notoriously hard to
| pinpoint.
|
| I'm not fear mongering. I live with a genetic disorder.
| I've paid lots of attention to food chemistry over the
| past nearly two decades since getting a proper diagnosis.
|
| I'm done with this discussion. This is the second comment
| accusing me of spreading fear. It's a ridiculous
| accusation and long experience tells me it will make zero
| difference how I reply. It only gets uglier from here.
| gameswithgo wrote:
| genes get arbitrarily modified by evolution, breeding, or
| manual intervention. could a gmo food cause a problem?
| sure, so could a food whose genes were modified by
| breeding or accident of nature
| Retric wrote:
| Evolution and selective breeding don't arbitrarily modify
| DNA. The actual methods are small random changes, copying
| from some other location possibly backwards, or removing
| segments. GMO significantly expands what kinds of changes
| are possible.
|
| In practice the difference is generally not that
| significant, but there is some increase in risks.
|
| Personally, I would prefer a different label for new GMO
| foods. Presumably, the odds of finding an undiscovered
| issue drops over time. So using a different label for the
| first 20 years is reasonably appropriate. Plenty of
| people are going to take slightly higher risks, so they
| can benefit from and thus test new cultivars.
| Nasrudith wrote:
| Do you know how they discovered methods of genetic
| modification? Retroviruses in nature. Look at HPV for one
| as a cause for cancer and the number of viruses embedded
| in human DNA. Evolution includes all of those.
|
| Of course /nothing/ meets the goal posts of "arbitrary"
| including state of the art genetic modification.
| Retric wrote:
| We have moved past simply copying and pasting DNA and can
| now add arbitrary genetic sequences to any organism.
| Natural rice retroviruses are unlikely to carry jellyfish
| DNA let alone something designed from scratch.
|
| As I said it's probably not that meaningful of a
| difference, but malicious actors have serious tools to
| work with here not just random changes.
| com2kid wrote:
| > Evolution and selective breeding don't arbitrarily
| modify DNA.
|
| Except for random mutations, which are, well, random
| changes to DNA.
|
| There is a reason the nightshade family[1] is so varied.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solanaceae
| Retric wrote:
| Small random changes yes, but long specific sequences
| become exponentially less likely. People on the other
| hand can decide to add say the first 100,00 digits of Pi
| or some other marker for internal use. Picking a useful
| sequence is hard, but we have the technology to add any
| specific sequence as long as the plant can survive it.
|
| So it's not just a question of random chance adding
| something harmful at this point, but also malicious
| actors. Someone could easily decide to try and reduce the
| human population by reducing fertility or whatnot and new
| GMO crops aren't tested for such things.
| mizzack wrote:
| Your pesticide/herbicide primary concern is a defining
| feature of GMO staples: glyphosate tolerance.
|
| I.e. you're going to find a lot more Roundup in GMO end
| products than non-GMO.
| specialist wrote:
| Exactly. My 3 main concerns with GMO are anything related
| to pesticides, anything transgenetic, and the
| _privatization_ of biology thru IP capture.
|
| I'm sorry those risks fall under the rubric of GMO and
| not "corporatism" and "theft". Blame the GMO rhetoric on
| big agriculture.
|
| A helpful contrasting example for the apologists:
|
| Wheat with better nutrition and yields: good.
|
| Wheat which requires matching pesticides, herbicides;
| where seeds are sterile; where seedstocks cannot be
| shared, reused, resold; where wheat incorporates genetic
| code from other plants: bad.
| tubularhells wrote:
| You mean the soyboys have been out evolved and outbred by
| the tofu eating Chadhuris?
| jonplackett wrote:
| Yeah Asia is an interesting one for this. In Japan at least
| they eat a tonne of fish and seaweed which has a lot omega 3
| which is really, really good for sperm so maybe there's other
| factors.
|
| Like I've said on other comments. When you're in the
| situation of having to figure it out, it's simpler to just
| blanket cut out anything with any evidence whatsoever. If it
| improves your chances 1% then it all adds up.
|
| Plus soy isn't even that great tasting. You aren't gonna miss
| it!
| beauzero wrote:
| Lard from pasture raised pork is also higher in omega 3. In
| the USA we switched to a "meat hog" around the 1920-30s for
| better industrialization. Just a heads up pasture pigs like
| Large Black hogs or wild boar do have a different flavor
| but you can buy the lard alone to cook with.
| jonplackett wrote:
| What the heck is a meat hog? Also curious where does that
| omega 3 come from? Can't be much in pasture grass? Is it
| like free range beef / chicken where they get more
| nutrients from accidentally eating a bunch of insects?
| admiral33 wrote:
| 4x is a large jump, is that referring to sperm count? It might
| be anecdata but given that you were seeing a fertility
| specialist it could be more valuable to hear your lifestyle
| changes rather than much of the noise that is out there.
| rhinoceraptor wrote:
| 4x is totally believable, I did two 25 day rounds of clomid
| so I could cryobank and I saw over a 10x jump in less than a
| month.
|
| The reason why is pretty obvious, I'm overweight so I'm
| aromatising more. Taking clomid blocks the estrogen negative
| feedback loop in the hypothalamus, so you make more GnRH, so
| therefore more LH/FSH.
|
| The whole endocrine disruption thing seems pretty sketchy to
| me. If you're infertile and/or have low testosterone, chances
| are your diet and lifestyle are horrible.
| jonplackett wrote:
| It's certainly anecdata since it's just me but it was
| multiple tests over that period and showed a steady increase
| from not going to work for IVF to the level where it would.
|
| They test a number of things from total count, count per ml,
| motility, correctness of shape. Everything went up. The shape
| was my main issue and that was the thing that increased 4X
|
| I should say I also took some supplements too.
|
| The problem with all this is isolating your variables - since
| you're on a very limited clock and sperm tests cost PS200 you
| don't have time or money to figure out which things made the
| most difference. You just try everything and hope you got
| some of the right things.
|
| All the things I listed above have some evidence for them
| affecting sperm so I just cut them all out.
| xkv wrote:
| > I also took some supplements
|
| Which ones? Our specialist recommended CoQ10
| admiral33 wrote:
| How did you cut out tap water, heat, microplastics, teflon,
| and the western diet?
| jonplackett wrote:
| Not completely obviously!
|
| Micro plastics was hard since you kinda have to choose
| between bottled water or tap water! We got a water filter
| for this one.
|
| Heat meant loose underpants and no warm baths ever.
|
| Teflon- easy. Replace with a carbon steel pan. Improve
| your chef skills AND sperm!
|
| Western diet is basically high sugar and refined carbs.
| Just didn't eat anything with refined sugar on the label
| in any amount whatsoever (I lost weight fast)
|
| also switched to organic meat and dairy to minimise
| antibiotics. Can't say if that made any difference but at
| least I was being nicer to animals
| Nilef wrote:
| Would love to hear more about the mind of brands/foods
| you ate with no sugar. I've attempted this before and
| it's extremely hard to find products with 0 sugar!
| Guessing you avoided the local Tesco?
| ejolto wrote:
| Not OP but I do this by avoiding processed foods, making
| everything "from scratch".
|
| Examples:
|
| - Pizza sauce from crushed tomatoes, tomato pure and
| spices.
|
| - Marinade for marinating meat from spices and olive oil
| and either balsamic vinegar or lime.
|
| - Pick my own blueberries that I freeze and put in plain
| yoghurt.
| gamblor956 wrote:
| Word of caution: most food cans are lined with BPA. Try
| to avoid canned food products and make the puree yourself
| if possible.
| jeffreyrogers wrote:
| Rice, meat, potatoes, eggs.
| com2kid wrote:
| > Micro plastics was hard since you kinda have to choose
| between bottled water or tap water!
|
| Micro plastics have been found in the muscle tissue of
| ocean fish[1].
|
| Micro plastics are everywhere, not just in water bottles.
|
| [1]https://adfpi.org/2020/04/15/microplastic-particles-
| identifi...
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| > We got a water filter for this one.
|
| Is that enough?
|
| I keep reading about how microplastics can be too small
| for a carbon filter and that you would need a reverse
| osmosis device, to completely remove plastics.
|
| I can't say am really sold on using a device with a
| plastic membrane to completely remove plastics.
|
| All the online materials on the topic are for the
| majority just product placements, it feels very
| disorienting to be able to make a data driven decision.
| Do you have any insight.
| ejolto wrote:
| > Is that enough?
|
| It must have been enough since his sperm count increased
| 4x, no?
|
| Either the filter worked or microplastics don't effect
| sperm count much.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| I've got an anti-tiger rock to sell you...
|
| "Something changed, therefore _this_ must be the reason"
| is a fallacy if there isn't additional supporting
| evidence.
| ejolto wrote:
| We are talking about an anecdote here, not giving general
| advice based on scientific literature.
|
| That said. If I lived in a village that was attacked by
| tigers regularly for 6 months, and I installed a tiger
| filter which stopped the attacks, I would gladly pay 30
| bucks for that ($30 is what a faucet water filter costs).
|
| Disclaimer: I don't own a water filter or a tiger filter.
| Accacin wrote:
| To be fair, this is a personal story and not a scientific
| study.
| [deleted]
| scns wrote:
| Tim Ferris wrote about radiation from mobile phones reducing
| sperm count in rats, and tested it on himself (as he usually
| does). Banned the mobile from his pants and got one of those
| attach it to your arm thingies. Spermcount went up.
| Manifretto wrote:
| Tim Ferris is half conartist half motivation speaker.
| andy_ppp wrote:
| I don't really love his shtick generally (a bit too try
| hard and salesman for my liking) but I think he's honest
| and not trying to con anyone. For example I tried the slow
| carb diet he proposes and I lost tonnes of weight.
| Manifretto wrote:
| He is probably coning on a subtile not relevant level.
|
| I googled his SCD and yes its the same schema f with his
| book and everything else he does.
|
| It is not new at all.
|
| His website uses the same technics to promote 'his'
| revolutionary things while never ever having done anthing
| new anything relevant at all.
|
| And i read his 4-hour workweek. I payed for that book.
| His charisma triggerd me to get it.
|
| This still doesn't mean he ever achieved anything you
| haven't read in any other blog or whatever.
|
| He is selling himself very well. I personally would not
| be proud of myself though if i had his 'career'.
| Bakary wrote:
| >I personally would not be proud of myself though if i
| had his 'career'.
|
| It's interesting how we are primed to assume a
| psychological burden for anyone who is financially
| successful. Perhaps to help ourselves cope? I'm not
| singling your comment out specifically, as I often have
| the same reaction.
|
| For all we know, Ferriss is probably highly satisfied,
| completely at ease with himself, and enjoying a great and
| varied existence.
| Manifretto wrote:
| Don't get me wrong, its not about the money itself
| necessarily but how you earn it.
|
| He sells himself and in my opinion he does use marketing
| tools and mechanisms i don't like.
|
| Nonetheless, the only reason why i care about him as he
| gets mentioned on HN every year or so. I care enough to
| write a comment but not to do anything else.
|
| How he does it and what he does feels for me like mental
| esotherism.
| Bakary wrote:
| I can't comment on Ferriss specifically, but almost any
| marketable diet can work in the short term since it makes
| you pay attention to what you eat. That fact alone is
| enough for results.
| colordrops wrote:
| Anecdote: I avoided all these things and more out of pure
| hypochondria for decades, and I impregnated my wife the two
| times we didn't use some form of birth control. I even have a
| sort of tic I integrated where I pull my testicles out from
| between my legs when they get constricted, and hadn't
| remembered why I started doing that until you reminded me that
| I read something about heat being bad for sperm in the 90s.
| jonplackett wrote:
| Good to have a counter point to the 'I drink a pint of whisky
| at night and smoke crack every morning and I got my wife
| pregnant no problem' argument!
| lupire wrote:
| It's not a counterpoint because no one says crack and
| whiskyt are required for pregnancy. It's a supporting point
| that sperm can develop without any particular specialized
| diet.
| nomdep wrote:
| Anecdote: when we did everything "right" and nothing. The
| moment we just relaxed and said "whathever", it happened. Two
| kids.
| mrmonkeyman wrote:
| Anecdote: same here, but did not avoid anything on that list.
| croisillon wrote:
| You seem to be kind of shadowban (not sure what the proper
| term is), you might want to write an email to the hn
| moderation to clear that up
| Nasrudith wrote:
| If you can reply to them they aren't shadowbanned.
| VectorLock wrote:
| So you started drinking bottled water, turned off the Wifi,
| eating sushi and going commando? Doesn't sound so bad, really.
| jonplackett wrote:
| Haha. I unfortunately did take it a bit more seriously. There
| was a point where if someone offered me a biscuit with my
| decaf tea my inner monologue would say "if you eat that
| biscuit you might never have children". It was at least in
| that way the easiest diet I ever went on. 100% motivation!
| ilyaeck wrote:
| What's so wrong with a biscuit?
| war1025 wrote:
| I may be off here, but I'm guessing based on the tea
| comment, that he may be British, which means a biscuit is
| actually a cookie in American terms.
| jonplackett wrote:
| Correct!
|
| What the hell is an American biscuit then?
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > What the hell is an American biscuit then?
|
| Basically, a chemically (as opposed to yeast) leavened
| bread roll.
| will_pseudonym wrote:
| the ingredients.
| jonplackett wrote:
| Like I said, I was going for the nuclear option and
| biscuits have sugar in. Sugar makes you fat. Fat belly
| means less testosterone. This is part of the anti-western
| diet thing.
| dalbasal wrote:
| Also.. it's probably made of whichever processed
| grain/seed is worst and dosed with additives:
| preservatives, flavour, colour, texture. If something in
| food is bad for whatever reason, it's probably in the
| biscuit.
|
| I find it quite poetic that modern man needs to go live
| by a lake, foraging naked for a few months to regain our
| reproductive viability.
| jules wrote:
| What were the things you did? Did it improve testosterone
| levels too? If that is the mechanism, could you raise
| sperm count with artificial testosterone? Or would that
| be counterproductive?
| VectorLock wrote:
| You'd probably hit diminishing returns when testicle
| shrinkage starts.
| driverdan wrote:
| > Sugar makes you fat.
|
| Nonsense. Overeating makes you fat, not a specific carb.
| Having a biscuit with a few grams of sugar is not going
| to impact your health in a meaningful way if you're not
| overeating.
| jonplackett wrote:
| Yeah that's just factually inaccurate. Sugar does
| specifically make you fat because of the way your body
| processes it. The fructose part (which is half of
| standard sugar) get stored as fat straight away and it
| also makes you less insulin sensitive. Over time that
| means you eat more and more sugar and your brain still
| doesn't think you're getting enough.
|
| Or if you just want a simpler explanation - eating sugar
| makes you crave more sugar and so you're a lot more
| likely to over eat.
| wonder_er wrote:
| > Overeating makes you fat, not a specific carb.
|
| Eating sugar creates a cascade of hormonal knock-on
| effects that can make you fat.
|
| I beg of you (especially if you're struggling with your
| weight!) to consider the alternatives to Calories-
| In/Calories-Out eating.
|
| My dad is a doctor, he's _convinced_ it's all CICO (which
| is what was taught to physicians in the 70s, and today),
| he struggles with his weight, constantly, and is super
| unhealthy. He eats low-fat everything, and is in
| miserable physical shape.
|
| He's blind to alternatives. It is unbecoming of a man of
| science to be so tied to a possibly-incorrect view of
| such an important topic.
|
| Consider: https://josh.works/notes-gary-taubes-case-
| against-sugar
| [deleted]
| Droobfest wrote:
| I'm a bit annoyed by the terminology here. CICO is as
| true as ever from a physics/physiology standpoint and I
| think it's good to acknowledge that.
|
| _However_ some calories keep you hungry so it's probably
| _much_ easier to limit your calories on low-sugar than a
| high-sugar diet.
| driverdan wrote:
| That's absolutely true for some people. My personal
| anecdote is that often when I eat something that's high
| in sugar I crave it more. I've done extensive nutrition
| planning and found lowering carbs reduces my appetite.
| driverdan wrote:
| I'm well aware of Gary Taube. His over emphasis of the
| effects of simple carbs is not entirely supported by
| science. There is an effect but it's not as strong as he
| presents it.
|
| If you find avoiding sugar helps you maintain a healthy
| diet than great, go for it. Do whatever works for you.
| But if your overall diet is a healthy balance then having
| a biscuit with tea is not going to negatively impact your
| health.
| lostcolony wrote:
| You are technically correct, but also missing the point.
|
| It's like saying an alcoholic can still responsibly drink
| by stopping at one.
| driverdan wrote:
| Re-read what I said. If abstinence is what you need then
| go for it. That's not the point I was making.
| gamblor956 wrote:
| The type of calorie matters.
|
| For example, the carbohydrates in fiber are not
| digestable, so those calories have effectively no impact
| on weight. Starches take longer to digest than simple
| sugars, so they result in less of an insulin response
| than the same quantity of simple sugars (meaning, if
| eating in excess, less starch is converted to fat).
|
| And even when just looking at simple sugars, fructose and
| glucose are processed by completely different metabolic
| pathways. The 5% difference in fructose content in HFCS
| (along with the double-digit difference in the % of
| "free" fructose) results in a significantly higher
| insulin response than plain old sugar.
|
| Indeed, if one eats a lot of sugar, as a result of
| insulin response, it is possible to get fatter _even
| though_ one is eating at a net deficit and losing weight.
| driverdan wrote:
| > the carbohydrates in fiber are not digestable, so those
| calories have effectively no impact on weight
|
| Which is why fiber doesn't get counted towards calories
| on labels.
|
| > Starches take longer to digest than simple sugars, so
| they result in less of an insulin response than the same
| quantity of simple sugars (meaning, if eating in excess,
| less starch is converted to fat).
|
| That's not what it means. Insulin response cannot create
| fat out of nothing and doesn't result in more or less fat
| being stored.
|
| If your glycogen stores are full and you consume more
| than you burn the excess calories are stored as fat
| regardless of the source or the pathway that stores it.
|
| Calories in, calories out means you have to factor in how
| many calories from the food are available for your body
| to use. It doesn't necessarily mean the calories of the
| food you put in your mouth.
| kodt wrote:
| One biscuit no, but perhaps it was easier for him to
| always say no instead of occasionally saying yes, which
| could easily turn into saying yes too often.
| jonplackett wrote:
| That was exactly it.
|
| The difficulty of dieting (and life in general!) is
| decisions. By being so absolutist it made it easier to
| just do it automatically rather than constantly weight up
| whether I should eat well.
|
| That's in hindsight.
|
| At the time in my mind I was really convinced that that
| one biscuit might make the difference.
| willismichael wrote:
| > less testosterone
|
| That's it, no more donuts for me.
| Razengan wrote:
| What's so wrong with never having children?
| jonplackett wrote:
| Nothing, if you don't _want_ to have children.
|
| But when you do, there's a lot wrong with it.
| fuzzer37 wrote:
| This is what I keep getting caught up on. I, for one,
| don't mind that my sperm count may be lower than my
| ancestors, or that my partners egg quality may be lower.
| I don't ever want to have children, so this honestly
| seems like a good thing to me. I know this isn't true for
| everyone (I'd say the majority of people _do_ want to
| reproduce), but for me personally, this kind of thing
| seems positive to indifferent at best.
| leetcrew wrote:
| this situation seems like an unhappy midpoint though. the
| chance of conception is still uncomfortably high for
| people who don't want children, while frustratingly low
| for those who do.
| fuzzer37 wrote:
| Hmm... I hadn't thought about it that way before. When
| you put it that way it makes more sense.
| balls187 wrote:
| Nothing is wrong with not having children, if that is
| your choice.
|
| If you want to start a family and are struggling to do
| so, that is very difficult to reconcile.
| astrea wrote:
| Well, they were actively deciding to and attempting to
| have children, for one.
| tuckerpo wrote:
| Having children and passing on your genes is literally
| the entire reason you exist as a living breathing
| organism.
| 0134340 wrote:
| I wouldn't go so far as self-righteously telling someone
| what their purpose in life is. Besides that, if you want
| to go down that road, being in a support class and being
| a productive, supporting member of society in other ways
| is an evolutionarily valid position. Perhaps someone
| views their life's purpose to support close family, even
| if they can't have any kids, or their definition of
| family may be much more abstract and inclusive to a
| larger community. Perhaps they do what they do for
| humanity rather than for themselves alone.
| VectorLock wrote:
| Sounds like the biggest life change you made was dieting
| then?
| [deleted]
| collyw wrote:
| Won't bottled water be more likely to contain plastic traces?
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| At least you know what's in bottled water, the water supply
| and its contents can vary wildly. In some places they still
| use lead pipes iirc.
| klmadfejno wrote:
| In many American locales, especially in areas with access
| to large clean aquifers, tap water will be cleaner than
| bottled water. Don't go assuming bottled is better. If
| you can afford to put a filter on your tap (this is
| expensive), I would on tap water being much cleaner.
| tsdlts wrote:
| I'd generally recommend avoiding tap water altogether in
| the U.S. and making sure you're not drinking fluoridated
| water. It's been show to decrease a child's IQ by up to 4
| points when used by pregnant moms[1].
|
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31424532/
| manmal wrote:
| There are reusable glass bottles, at least where I live.
| forgotmypw17 wrote:
| You said "temporarily", so I want to remind you that all the
| same things are harmful to a child's development, especially
| when their systems are just coming online and establishing
| their baselines.
| jonplackett wrote:
| Yes absolutely! Still doing the dietary things for her. She
| gets to have hot baths though, and wear tight fitting
| underpants.
|
| FYI anyone else reading, if you have a boy Teflon is really
| something you should avoid.
| forgotmypw17 wrote:
| I'm duplicating this text higher up, lest it be buried deep
| in the argument below:
|
| > At normal cooking temperatures, PTFE-coated cookware
| releases various gases and chemicals that present mild to
| severe toxicity.
|
| > Only few studies describe the toxicity of PTFE but
| without solid conclusions.
|
| > There are some reports where PFOA was detected in the gas
| phase released from the cooking utensils under normal
| cooking temperatures.
|
| > Due to toxicity concerns, PFOA has been replaced with
| other chemicals such as GenX, but these new alternatives
| are also suspected to have similar toxicity.
|
| > The toxicity and fate of ingested PTFE coatings are also
| not understood.
|
| Source:
|
| PTFE-coated non-stick cookware and toxicity concerns: a
| perspective
|
| Muhammad Sajid 1, Muhammad Ilyas 2
|
| PMID: 28913736
|
| DOI: 10.1007/s11356-017-0095-y
|
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28913736/
| Hallucinaut wrote:
| Somewhat frivolous comment, but naming a material GenX
| hardly says to me "trusted and proven safe". It sounds
| like the backstory to a mutant movie.
| dijit wrote:
| Huh, all my trousers were coated in teflon when I was
| growing up. It was a prominent selling feature.
| forgotmypw17 wrote:
| So are pizza boxes and microwave popcorn bags
| Lammy wrote:
| Good parenting is forcing your boy children to take cold
| baths because you need their sperm to carry on your legacy.
| sep_field wrote:
| Good parenting is adopting rather than creating new life.
| Birthing a child is the single worst thing a couple can
| do to the environment.
| formerly_proven wrote:
| There are better options.
|
| https://i.kym-
| cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/710/124/9ce...
| natchy wrote:
| Then the intelligent people who should be having kids are
| not. We need smart people to fix problems, especially
| related to the environment. If all the low IQ people keep
| pumping out babies you can kiss the precious environment
| goodbye.
| [deleted]
| natchy wrote:
| I don't read any politics or social media outside HN so
| funny to see what a political sheep looks like.
|
| Forced sterilization based on political association is...
| uh, not a high IQ suggestion.
| forgotmypw17 wrote:
| Cold baths is a bit far, but pouring a bucket of cold
| water over them has many health benefits, including
| immune function.
| forgotmypw17 wrote:
| To clarify my comment, this is done with gentle
| reassurance and playfully, not as any sort of hazing or
| abuse, purely for health benefits.
|
| It is common in many cultures in eastern europe and
| elsewhere and the health benefits are well known.
| voqv wrote:
| I wonder if it's Teflon in general or damaged Teflon pans -
| many people do not used them correctly, overheat them and
| have damaged coatings that leak chemicals.
|
| You can go check perfectly fine pans having 1-star Amazon
| reviews "Pan sticking after a month!".
| forgotmypw17 wrote:
| Based on random website I found googling, it starts to
| break down and release PFOA around 300F, which is easy to
| achieve if the pan is not filled with water.
| gruez wrote:
| Do you have your units mixed up? Wikipedia seems to have
| a different range:
|
| >While PTFE is stable and nontoxic at lower temperatures,
| it begins to deteriorate after the temperature of
| cookware reaches about 260 degC (500 degF),
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polytetrafluoroethylene
| forgotmypw17 wrote:
| I used a different source than the one you link. 500F is
| not difficult for a frying pan to reach either.
|
| The same Wikipedia page also reads:
|
| >Pyrolysis of PTFE is detectable at 200 degC (392 degF),
| and it evolves several fluorocarbon gases and a
| sublimate.
|
| My completely unscientific, unsubstantiated guess, based
| purely on obsessively researching food safety for years,
| is that it begins to leach at a much lower temperature.
| gruez wrote:
| > I used a different source than the one you link. 500F
| is not difficult for a frying pan to reach either.
|
| Most vegetable oils smoke before 500F. If you're just
| frying up an egg or sauteing some vegetables you'll be
| fine.
|
| >The same Wikipedia page also reads:
|
| The sentence after it:
|
| >An animal study conducted in 1955 concluded that it is
| unlikely that these products would be generated in
| amounts significant to health at temperatures below 250
| degC (482 degF).[
| forgotmypw17 wrote:
| Without reading that study, who it was funded by, how it
| was conducted, I choose to err on the side of caution. In
| other words, I don't believe that statement for a
| microsecond, especially coming from 1955.
| gruez wrote:
| >I don't believe that statement for a microsecond,
| especially coming from 1955.
|
| but you're willing to believe unsourced statements based
| on your own intuition?
| forgotmypw17 wrote:
| I provided a credible source in another reply to your
| comments:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26238226
|
| But yes, I'll side with my intuition when it comes to my
| health and those dependent on me.
|
| Just because someone says the gun is not loaded...
| abledon wrote:
| who the heck is getting their pans to 260C? ? ? Frying
| eggs... it only needs to get so hot?
| giantg2 wrote:
| Here's something interesting to think about.
|
| Did you ever hear of a canary in a coal mine? The miners
| would take birds in with them to alert them to dangers
| gasses. If there were dangerous gasses he bird would
| typically die before the miners did. This is because the
| bird has very high performance lungs so that they can
| supply enough oxygen to beat their wings quickly.
|
| You basically can't own a bird in an appartment and cook
| with teflon cookware or run the self clean setting on the
| oven (they are teflon coated inside) because the fumes
| will kill them.
| somehnguy wrote:
| I've read this all over the internet but my parents had a
| bird live very well past the expected bird lifespan and
| modified nothing about their normal habits (using teflon
| pans, cleaning the oven, etc) the entire time. The bird's
| cage was like 15 feet from the oven. Just a single
| anecdotal data point but I think the risk is extremely
| overblown.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Interesting.
|
| I see the risk as being in the level where I choose not
| to use teflon pans, but not extreme enough to ban it or
| force others to follow my choices. I think the
| environmental impact from the manufacturers is a bigger
| concern that should be monitored more closely. I think
| they have a Netflix documentary about one place in WV. Of
| course the company switched to a new (largely untested)
| chemical for new coatings. Just a shell game to stay in
| compliance or public favor, like with BPA vs BPS.
| forgotmypw17 wrote:
| I agree that for the average Joe, it is a waste of effort
| to try to get bans enacted. That time is much better
| spent doing research (or contracting a trusted qualified
| person to do so) and then enacting changes in the space
| they personally have agency over.
| giantg2 wrote:
| I'm just saying that I don't think it's right people to
| tell other what to do unless it has some direct and well
| demonstrated impact to the rights of another. As long as
| the manufacturers are correctly controlling the waste,
| then I don't see why banning it would make sense. Sort if
| like some people choose to smoke cigarettes- that's their
| choice.
| voqv wrote:
| That last paragraph does not seem to be true. Well only
| if you're an "an absent-minded person" according to:
|
| https://www.petcoach.co/article/teflon-toxicity-ptfe-
| toxicos...
| giantg2 wrote:
| Do you really think that people who own nonstick pans are
| only using them a low and medium settings as the article
| recommends? Or that most apartments have a vent hood for
| the stove? Something they don't mention is that the FDA
| also recommends throwing out nonstick pans made before
| 2013 (I think that was the year) because the older pans
| emit more fumes and at lower temperatures.
|
| Sure, if you're extremely careful about using it, it's
| possible. That's why my previous comment wasn't absolute.
| But the majority of people I've known who use them seem
| to treat the pans poorly and cook with them at all
| temperatures. Many times they only own nonstick pans (who
| has space for multiple sets in an appartment?), and use
| them at all temperatures.
| voqv wrote:
| That's literally what my first comment was saying :) It's
| kind of crazy how widespread this issue is though.
| slipper wrote:
| In my experience, Teflon will always be scratched. Yes,
| in theory you could "use it correctly", but nobody ever
| does. So it's better to simply not have them.
| danlugo92 wrote:
| Whats a good alternative? The ceramic ones?
| voqv wrote:
| Stainless steel for most things (can't make eggs/pancakes
| though, they'll stick). Preheat the pan before using.
| After cooking, warm up some water in it and scrap away
| the stuck bits with a wooden spoon (or make a pan sauce).
|
| Cast Iron or High-Carbon steel for steaks, eggs/pancakes,
| stir-fries (wok). You will have to maintain a non-stick
| seasoning and that has a learning curve, most people
| don't get it right at first. Make sure to always dry them
| as they can rust.
|
| You can look at enamel or copper if you have the $$$.
| tristor wrote:
| It may be difficult to get to happen in your
| relationship, because at least for me, my partner is
| insistent on using non-stick pans. If you have to have
| non-stick, ceramic or hard anodized are much healthier
| than teflon, although they aren't as non-stick so require
| some adjustments to cooking style.
|
| The best things to use are cast-iron and cladded
| stainless steel. With both, you heat the pan more slowly
| to reach your appropriate temperature (you're looking for
| leidenfrost) and then you add oil, and cook. If you use
| healthy oils and heat before adding the oil, cast-iron is
| effectively non-stick once a seasoning develops and
| cladded stainless steel won't stick except with specific
| foods (eggs). But this is definitely a different
| methodology for cooking than most people are familiar
| with.
|
| The other benefit of using non-teflon pans is you can use
| all types of utensils.
| forgotmypw17 wrote:
| Just want to share what I learned from personal
| experience:
|
| Don't give up on winning over your partner's mind. It may
| take a little while, and you have to be patient,
| diplomatic, and gentle. People are resistant to change.
| But it is not hopeless, and it is worth it in the end,
| because their health is at stake.
| forgotmypw17 wrote:
| Enamel
|
| Ceramic
|
| Cast iron
|
| Stainless steel
|
| In that order, in my opinion.
| rblatz wrote:
| You left out the two I've been considering, hard anodized
| and high carbon steel. Any reason why?
| phoenixfangor wrote:
| We've switched to carbon steel from cast iron; while it's
| easy to warp the carbon steel (and we have), it still
| works fairly well on our electric range. The seasoning is
| just as good as cast iron. A heavier high carbon steel
| pan might avoid the warping issue, but ours are all
| pretty thin.
| forgotmypw17 wrote:
| I just wrote down what I could remember and have
| experience with.
|
| I don't buy frying pans, so I take what I can get.
| petertodd wrote:
| Personally I just use cheap and simple solid stainless
| steel cookware, and scrub aggressively. Chainmail
| scrubbers work well for really baked on stuff:
| https://www.amazon.com/Knapp-Made-CM-Scrubber-
| Stainless/dp/B...
|
| I used to have teflon cookware. It's great in theory. But
| in practice, I find indestructible stuff that you don't
| have to baby works much better for me. Of course, if you
| don't have much upper body strength, other approaches may
| work better.
| rjsw wrote:
| Traditional cooking techniques [1] make use of the
| browned bits anyway, you don't get this as much with non
| stick cookware. I don't find stainless steel pans too
| hard to clean.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deglazing_(cooking)
| petertodd wrote:
| I remember how the first time I tried to make beef stew
| it tasted terrible. Then I tried browning the meat
| first...
| forgotmypw17 wrote:
| In my experience, anything plant-based comes off readily
| with just a good soak, unless it's been burned on to
| blackness.
| datavirtue wrote:
| I have used cast iron for decades. Never once had to
| scrub them.
| fuzzer37 wrote:
| Hot water in a hot/warm pan has always worked for me to
| keep them clean.
| goatinaboat wrote:
| Traditional skillet
| com2kid wrote:
| Ceramic pans will always fail after a short bit of time.
| Cook's Illustrated has yet to find one that can pass
| their durability tests.
|
| That said I wish they'd test the Granitestone Pro as
| other reviewers have said the Granitestone holds up
| better than other ceramic pans.
| forgotmypw17 wrote:
| I use two ceramic pans which are still as good as when I
| got them 10-15 years ago from a brand called ecosafe. Not
| all from the set made it, one got ruined by overheating.
|
| Stainless is durable, but I suspect there are issues with
| chemical reactions between the food and bare metal.
|
| I think that enamel is the best, being inert and durable,
| and old technology, though you also don,t want to drop or
| overheat it.
|
| Cast iron is also good, just unwieldy and difficult to
| clean if you,re cooking meat, eggs, cheese, basically
| animal proteins.
| com2kid wrote:
| > one got ruined by overheating.
|
| My primary use case is high heat wok cooking. A lot of
| ceramic woks exist, they just don't last long!
| gruez wrote:
| >Teflon will always be scratched
|
| AFAIK this is a non-issue because teflon is inert in its
| finished form. It's only an health risk during
| manufacturing and when it's heated too high.
| forgotmypw17 wrote:
| Sorry, but your knowledge is incorrect. Teflon breaks
| down and leeches into food at commonly encountered
| cooking temperatures.
| gruez wrote:
| claiming it "leeches into food" is a stretch. Wikipedia
| says even after reaching 500F it sublimates to
| fluorocarbon gases. I wouldn't want to be near it, but
| it's not exactly leeching into the food either. It's also
| unclear whether the fluorocarbon gases have the same
| effects on the human body as PFOA.
| forgotmypw17 wrote:
| If you want to gamble with your health while the jury is
| still, technically, out, I can't stop you...
|
| > At normal cooking temperatures, PTFE-coated cookware
| releases various gases and chemicals that present mild to
| severe toxicity.
|
| > Only few studies describe the toxicity of PTFE but
| without solid conclusions.
|
| > There are some reports where PFOA was detected in the
| gas phase released from the cooking utensils under normal
| cooking temperatures.
|
| > Due to toxicity concerns, PFOA has been replaced with
| other chemicals such as GenX, but these new alternatives
| are also suspected to have similar toxicity.
|
| > The toxicity and fate of ingested PTFE coatings are
| also not understood.
|
| Source:
|
| PTFE-coated non-stick cookware and toxicity concerns: a
| perspective
|
| Muhammad Sajid 1, Muhammad Ilyas 2
|
| PMID: 28913736
|
| DOI: 10.1007/s11356-017-0095-y
|
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28913736/
| gruez wrote:
| > At normal cooking temperatures, PTFE-coated cookware
| releases various gases and chemicals that present mild to
| severe toxicity.
|
| I don't think it means what you think it means. Reading
| further into the paper, it says
|
| >At normal use conditions [< 230 degC], total emissions
| of PFCAs were 4.75 ng per hour
|
| Which seems absolutely tiny. If spread out the emissions
| across the hour (because the 4.75 ng figure was
| cumulative emissions), the exposure to the cook would be
| in the parts per trillion range.
| forgotmypw17 wrote:
| I guess it's all relative and a matter of opinion...
|
| 4.75 nanograms may not seem like a lot, but when you
| consider that, at 414.07g/mol it is 6,908,293,060,000
| parts of the stuff, it seems like quite a bit to me. And
| that's in just one cooking session.
|
| Please correct me if I'm wrong, it's been a while since
| my chemistry class.
|
| The EPA drinking water standards, the ones watered down
| by industry influence, are measured in parts per
| trillion.
|
| Here is a science question for you: If the EPA limit for
| PFOA in drinking water is 70 parts per trillion, what
| volume of water would need to be mixed with 4.75
| nanograms of PFOA in order to bring that water to within
| the allowable limit for drinking water?
|
| Now, here is a quote from the EPA:
|
| > These studies indicate that exposure to PFOA and PFOS
| over certain levels may result in adverse health effects,
| including developmental effects to fetuses during
| pregnancy or to breastfed infants (e.g., low birth
| weight, accelerated puberty, skeletal variations), cancer
| (e.g., testicular, kidney), liver effects (e.g., tissue
| damage), immune effects (e.g., antibody production and
| immunity), thyroid effects and other effects (e.g.,
| cholesterol changes). There is limited information
| identifying health effects from inhalation or dermal
| exposures to PFOA or PFOS in humans and animals.
|
| Based on this question, do you think there are any
| "health effects" if exposed to PFOA and PFOS below these
| "certain levels".
| gruez wrote:
| >4.75 nanograms may not seem like a lot, but when you
| consider that, at 414.07g/mol it is 6,908,293,060,000
| parts of the stuff, it seems like quite a bit to me.
|
| This doesn't prove anything part from molecules being
| really small. What's more important at what doses do
| negative health effects materialize.
|
| >And that's in just one cooking session.
|
| I'm not sure about you but 1 hour is an usually long time
| to be using a frying pan. Unless you're cooking a huge
| slab of meat, letting anything sit in a 230C degree pan
| for an hour would result it being burnt/overcooked.
|
| >The EPA drinking water standards, the ones watered down
| by industry influence, are measured in parts per
| trillion.
|
| Looking through https://www.epa.gov/ground-water-and-
| drinking-water/national..., the only one that I can find
| that's near 1 part per trillion is dioxin, at 0.03 PPT.
| The rest are well above that. Furthermore, even 1 part
| per trillion is a high estimate for actual exposure. In
| addition to being spread out across an hour (3600
| seconds), the emissions are also dispersed across the
| room and vented out. Finally, like I pointed out earlier,
| what maters more is the toxicity of the compound. Dioxins
| and PFCAs are both "bad", but it doesn't mean they're
| equally as toxic. The limit for mercury is orders of
| magnitude higher at 2 parts per billion.
| forgotmypw17 wrote:
| Googling for "epa pfoa", I found this page, where the
| limit is listed as 70 parts per trillion:
|
| https://www.epa.gov/ground-water-and-drinking-
| water/drinking...
|
| Did you get a chance to take a crack at the chemistry
| math problem I posed?
|
| Once you've solved that one, here is another one for you:
|
| If 4.75 nanograms of the material is aerosoled out into
| the air, what amount is absorbed directly into the food
| which is cooking on the pan?
| M5x7wI3CmbEem10 wrote:
| antibacterial soap, too? how do you keep yourself clean?
|
| and underpants, how? because of how tight they are?
| Aachen wrote:
| > antibacterial soap, too? how do you keep yourself clean?
|
| Regular soap?
| jonplackett wrote:
| Exactly. Antibacterial soap is marketing BS. Soap already
| kills bacteria. As it has done since it was invented.
|
| Proof point- look how hard antibacterial soap is being
| advertised during the pandemic, which is cause by a frikkin
| VIRUS
| aaronmdjones wrote:
| COVID-19 is surrounded by a lipid envelope; soaps break
| down lipids.
| duckmysick wrote:
| Yes, and you don't need an _anitbacterial_ soap for that.
| A regular soap will be fine.
| aaronmdjones wrote:
| Yeah, but jon worded it like antibacterial soap would be
| ineffective (due to this being a virus), but it's not.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| draugadrotten wrote:
| >and underpants, how? because of how tight they are?
|
| Temperature control is the reason the testicles are in a
| vulnerable unprotected spot outside of the body. If they were
| inside the rib cage they would be better protected but
| warmer.
|
| Underpants that keep them warm are working against this.
|
| Nudism at home is weird but works. Works wonders on the testo
| level as well if the wife does it too. Avoid hot beverages.
| gadders wrote:
| _something something Alex Jones something something_
|
| //edit// This is semi-facetious, but he did mention something
| similar in his, er, unique fashion.
| barbacoa wrote:
| He also would rant about jeffrey epstein years before the media
| caught on.
| dukeofdoom wrote:
| 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
| hobo_mark wrote:
| 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.
| Majestic121 wrote:
| 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-
| hi...
|
| [1] At least the Alps
| watwut wrote:
| We have mountains here and they don't look all that super
| healthy. They also tend to be poor.
| dukeofdoom wrote:
| Thats true to a degree. But I'm betting many unfit people
| would get fit if adapting the same diet/lifestyle habits.
| Balgair wrote:
| 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.
| cortexio wrote:
| 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.
| hilbert42 wrote:
| 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._
| jdsalaro wrote:
| > 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.
|
| I've been reading through http://projecttendr.com/ and they
| seem to be what you're looking for. I'm not sure what traction
| they've achieved on the political arena if any, though.
|
| > Targeting Environmental Neuro-Development Risks Project TENDR
| is a unique collaboration of leading scientists, health
| professionals and children's and environmental advocates. We
| came together in 2015 out of concern over the now substantial
| scientific evidence linking toxic environmental chemicals to
| neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism spectrum disorder,
| attention deficits, hyperactivity, intellectual disability and
| learning disorders.
| jonplackett wrote:
| When something's this bad it would be much better to act now
| based on the evidence we have and figure out the full picture
| later. We know enough about how bad plastic is, even based
| solely on how it affects the environment and goes through the
| food chain as microplastics basically forever.
| m_eiman wrote:
| There are lists available, e.g. 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.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.
| hilbert42 wrote:
| Right, synergistic effects are prevalent everywhere in with
| chemicals, drugs etc. One of the biggest factors is that
| we're exposed to so many trace chemicals that figuring out
| the combination of effects and whether their concentrations
| are relevant is extremely difficult even with the best
| science.
|
| I reckon we will all be interested to see what the EU
| evaluation brings. What worries me though is that the EU is
| known for its hair-trigger response in such matters. If the
| evidence isn't really solid then we'll end up with a long
| protracted (and unnecessary) war with the plastics/chemical
| industry.
|
| As I see it, the chemical industry is the most vital of
| industries as it underpins just about everything that's
| manufactured nowadays, without it we'd be in deep you-know-
| what. The fact that it's had a lot to answer for in the past,
| pollution etc., cannot be ignored but demonizing it
| unnecessarily won't help either.
|
| From my perspective as one who doesn't work in the industry
| but who's had training in chemistry, there are two major
| problems that need solving. The first is that the chemical
| industry, especially in recent decades, is essentially closed
| to outsiders. There are many reasons for this, regulations,
| worry about access to dangerous chemicals, industrial
| accidents such as Bhopal being bad PR, and the fact that the
| industry is afraid to say anything for fear the public
| doesn't understand or takes what it says the wrong way - not
| to mention that its own PR is terrible to nonexistent. The
| second is that the public is grossely under-trained in
| chemistry and thus it's easily spooked or frightened whenever
| the word 'chemical' turns up. This leads to situations where
| minor incidents get concatenated with serious ones and they
| all take on equal seriousness. (I'll refrain from muddying
| the waters here with examples but there are many.)
|
| I haven't the time to go into the reasons why the public is
| so sensitive and twitchy nowadays - given that chemistry is
| taught in schools - but nevertheless it's a serious problem.
| The secrecy surrounding the industry only makes matters
| worse.
|
| It's why I'm always worried about inquiries into such
| matters. Of recent times we see engineers and scientists
| being so noncommittal about so many things that regulators
| and politicians ban things by default before the science is
| set. I acknowledge that's a sweeping statement because there
| are obvious exceptions where both commonsense and incomplete
| science indicate that we should act immediately. That, I
| stess again, is why the public needs to be better educated in
| the subject - then more correct decisions would be made more
| often and without unnecessary drama.
| MattGaiser wrote:
| Is there a reason we can't just dump tons of mice into
| different sets and combos of chemicals and see what happens?
| sdenton4 wrote:
| I think that's basically the current system.
|
| Unfortunately, we're worried about bioaccumulation over
| decades, and lab mice only live a year or so... It's also
| worth considering the number of Giant Breakthroughs that
| happen with mice which fail to translate to humans. They're
| quite different, it turns out.
| hetspookjee wrote:
| I'd wager ethical considerations would hamper such
| ambition.
| numpad0 wrote:
| It's astounding how automated and reproducible software
| testing is.
| amelius wrote:
| And yet software crashes all the time ...
| adrianN wrote:
| The search space is pretty big and research costs money.
| petertodd wrote:
| One problem is mice aren't humans. In many cases research
| done on mice ends up being overly _pessimistic_ , because
| the short lifespans of mice compared to humans means there
| is less evolutionary pressure to be resilient to cancers
| and other diseases of aging. Equally, in other
| circumstances they'll be more resilient, because they don't
| live long enough to see the effects of longer term toxins.
| And of course, there can be differences in specific
| metabolic pathways.
|
| So yes, it certainly would be good to do more of that
| research. But there's limits to what it can tell us.
| inter_netuser wrote:
| We all know what these are. It's precursors to common plastics,
| and byproducts of their decay. Majority of these have been
| grandfathered as GRAS "generally recognized as safe" by the FDA
| when environmental laws first went live in the 60s.
|
| The onus is therefore much higher, it is on you to prove they
| are harmful, instead of requiring producers to prove they are
| safe.
|
| Nobody wants to stick their neck out because the petrochemicals
| lobby will go after you, your career and your family.
|
| The only way to get this fixed is to require producers to
| conduct testing to prove they do not disrupt endocrine systems
| of not only humans, but other animals, insects and so on.
|
| I'm just not sure the political will is there.
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| The most reasonable work around is to force producers to
| label their product.
|
| There are many vegetable packing containers which do not
| specify which plastic type they are. There are thousands of
| cleaning products and hygiene products that hide these
| compounds in the 'Parfums' label.
|
| Forcing manufacturers to exaustively list composition would
| at least give people the data to make an informed decision
| when buying a product.
|
| Also we really need to we stop watering down all these health
| and environmental protection regulations because of
| lobbyists.
| inter_netuser wrote:
| It's labeled now, and what good is that? I am sure you've
| seen "sodium benzoate" if you ever read these.
|
| Not until someone actually finds free benzene in the
| drinks, giving rise to serious liability on the part of the
| companies, absolutely nothing gets done.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benzene_in_soft_drinks
| adrianN wrote:
| No, labeling things does exactly nothing for consumers,
| because most of them don't have a Phd in endocrinology so
| they don't have the faintest idea what to do with the extra
| information. The most reasonable workaround is forcing
| producers to prove safety of the chemicals they use before
| using them.
| jk7tarYZAQNpTQa wrote:
| > labeling things does exactly nothing for consumers,
| because most of them don't have a Phd in endocrinology
|
| They don't need to. We, as technologists and scientists,
| can develop solutions to make the decision process very
| easy, almost automatic. A smartphone app that reads a
| barcode and produces a color-coded safety value, from
| green to red, is all a consumer needs to shop safely. Or
| a website containing whitelists or ordered lists, "the
| safest shampoo is X". Then the free market will
| theoretically make manufacturers compete to be at the top
| of that list.
|
| The problem is, such lists/apps can't be made until
| manufacturers disclose every single ingredient and
| chemical they use. And that won't be done until
| legislators force them to.
| adrianN wrote:
| Technology is not the solution to everything. Almost
| nobody wants to go to a store and consult their phone for
| every item they purchase and do a complex optimization
| problem involving safety, ecological footprint, socially
| responsible supply chains, the dozen other problems we
| want to burden "informed consumers" with, their personal
| valuation function and the purchase price.
| jk7tarYZAQNpTQa wrote:
| > Technology is not the solution to everything
|
| It's not _the_ solution, but in many situations (like
| this one) it helps the consumer make an informed decision
| overwhelmingly easier and faster.
|
| > Almost nobody wants to go to a store and consult their
| phone for every item they purchase
|
| How are you so sure about it? Have you read a survey?
| Could you please cite it?
|
| You don't need to do it everytime, just the first time,
| and then settle on a brand for a given product,
| indefinitely. People already use similar apps for a
| health summary. And you don't need to do it all at once,
| it can be done incrementally. "Today I'm going to look
| for the best frozen lasagna". It takes 30 seconds to scan
| every option, and then some extra seconds to decide which
| one works best for you. The next time you go to the store
| you spend your 30 secs deciding on a frozen pizza brand.
|
| > the dozen other problems we want to burden "informed
| consumers" with
|
| So what do you propose? Assume the public is ignorant and
| just doesn't care? As individuals we have a
| responsibility to make informed decisions, award
| manufacturers with our money on an informed manner, and
| help other become and stay informed. And as technologists
| we have a much bigger responsibility to use technology as
| a fundamental tool in the process.
| Lammy wrote:
| > when environmental laws first went live in the 60s.
|
| I love our Earth and want to protect it as much as possible,
| and it's incredibly frustrating that restricting housing
| construction, globalizing pollution emission so it's out-of-
| sight-and-mind, and economically wrecking large swaths of
| middle America are the only things our environmental laws
| seem to be consistently good at :/
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| It's easy to forget how much cleaner our air and water are
| now, though.
| Lammy wrote:
| Clean enough for a lot of us to ignore that humanity's
| shared CO2 footprint is worse than ever because it
| happens Somewhere Else and doesn't (yet) impact us day to
| day: https://keelingcurve.ucsd.edu/
| forgotmypw17 wrote:
| If you wait for someone else to think for you and protect you
| from all the dangers in life, you'll be waiting a long time.
|
| The "regulators" are the same people and entities who make huge
| profits off this stuff.
|
| Do your research and act on it yourself.
| wing-_-nuts wrote:
| >Do your research and act on it yourself.
|
| Or, we could acknowledge that most of the general public
| doesn't have the education necessary, and have the government
| regulate on our behalf. You know... like they're elected to
| do.
|
| Average Joe truck driver or Jane LPN shouldn't have to have
| an indepth knowledge of endocrinology just to be safe from
| the greed and callousness of polluting corporations.
| atq2119 wrote:
| > Or, we could acknowledge that most of the general public
| doesn't have the education necessary, and have the
| government regulate on our behalf.
|
| It's also worth acknowledging that having this kind of
| regulation makes our society more efficient.
|
| I would be capable of informing myself on this issue, but I
| don't. The are _so many_ issues of this kind that if I were
| to attempt to inform myself on all of them, I wouldn 't be
| able to get anything done anymore.
|
| Another way of looking at it is that regulation is a form
| of implicit specialization, which is why it helps us be
| more efficient.
| forgotmypw17 wrote:
| > Or, we could acknowledge that most of the general public
| doesn't have the education necessary, and have the
| government regulate on our behalf. You know... like they're
| elected to do.
|
| Hmm... Are you talking about the regulators who come from
| the same industry which produces the pollutants and are
| heavily lobbied by that industry?
|
| > Average Joe truck driver or Jane LPN shouldn't have to
| have an indepth knowledge of endocrinology just to be safe
| from the greed and callousness of polluting corporations.
|
| While I agree with your "shouldn't have to", there is no
| reason that they cannot read the same research papers and
| understand them enough to come to their own conclusions.
|
| We are blessed with being able to access that information,
| and I think it is foolish to not take advantage of that
| privilege.
| RGamma wrote:
| The planet is ridding itself of its disease, beautiful.
| dang wrote:
| Please don't do this here.
| Darmody wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| Darmody wrote:
| "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..."
|
| That happened long before humans existed and we still have
| animals with no natural predators.
|
| Also earth is not a patient. Earth doesn't care about you
| or about the ecosystems. Many years ago there was no life
| on earth and in the future life will be gone and the earth
| won't mind at all-
| RGamma wrote:
| The depletion of the ecosystem is crucial for my example
| (no animal does that without consequences for itself or
| its environment)
|
| Earth being a patient was metaphorical speech. And sure
| we can be nihilistic about it, at which point all is said
| and done.
|
| The hope is we don't recklessly risk throwing away the
| results of millions of years of natural evolution and
| thousands of years of cumulative cultural achievement
| because capitalism overvalues consumer convenience.
| That's idiocracy-level kind of shit.
| Rompect wrote:
| Sorry to disappoint you, but the population is still going to
| rise, since this is not a global phenomenon. The areas with the
| already highest birth rates are not significantly affected.
| cblconfederate wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Can these endocrine disruptors also contribute to gender
| dysphoria?
| fogihujy wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| > 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 wrote:
| 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.
| pb7 wrote:
| > It's sort of like asking if being shorter than 6' a
| medical condition.
|
| Maybe not 6' but isn't dwarfism considered a medical
| condition?
|
| > Or if being unattractive is a medical condition.
|
| Again, most cases not, but things like crooked teeth,
| cleft lips, acne, etc that could be left alone but are
| frequently treated because they reduce quality of life
| are considered medical conditions.
|
| I buy the argument that "medical condition" can carry
| heavy negative connotations, especially for minority
| populations, but still believe anything that requires
| medical intervention (like hormone therapy but especially
| reassignment surgery) qualifies. We should just attack
| the stigma.
| zug_zug wrote:
| >> I buy the argument that "medical condition" can carry
| heavy negative connotations, especially for minority
| populations, but still believe anything that requires
| medical intervention (like hormone therapy but especially
| reassignment surgery) qualifies.
|
| Yeah I mean my point is it's mostly just semantics and
| lines in the sand. But semantics matter emotionally.
|
| The important thing if you want to research the
| hypothesis that xenoestrogens can cause trans is just to
| not offend people along the way. If phrased right I think
| both left and right can get behind the sentiment that
| chemical pollution potentially influencing gender
| identity is something worth investigating.
| pseudalopex wrote:
| Dwarfism is a symptom of conditions like growth hormone
| deficiency. Cleft lip can have complications. Most people
| don't think of cosmetic conditions when they say medical
| conditions.
|
| Gender dysphoria is considered a medical condition. But
| people can be trans without it.
| kleer001 wrote:
| Probably not Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria. That's social.
|
| Additionally transexuals have appeared in every extant
| civilization. Some women have felt more like themselves passing
| as men and some men have felt more themselves passing as women.
| From Indian to Chinese to Native Americans there's always been
| people like that. I'm pretty sure any impression of there being
| more of them is due to news cycles, fast communications, and
| increasing overall empathy.
| ReactiveJelly wrote:
| As mentioned in the sibling comment
|
| "it's a highly controversial topic as it indicates that
| something is inherently wrong with being transgender."
|
| Whether ROGD exists or not, there isn't going to be useful
| discourse about it on public social media, where 99.9% of the
| time anyone talking about "endocrine disruptors" or "ROGD" or
| "social contagion" is only using it to invalidate the entire
| notion of being trans. Sometimes because their child is
| questioning their gender and they want to shut that down
| without just having a parent-child conversation about it.
|
| Did environmental microplastics and soy milk and Wifi
| radiation and being friends with trans people make me into a
| woman?
|
| We can raise that hypothesis in good faith, but I'm not going
| to quit transitioning even if it turns out to be true.
| pseudalopex wrote:
| The evidence for ROGD is 1 study. It assumed teenagers tell
| their parents everything. And selected for parents who
| refused to accept their children coming out as trans.
| cblconfederate wrote:
| Given that there isn't a dramatic increase of homosexual
| population, its probably not a major cause. In fact IIRC
| homosexual men with high T tend to be "more exclusively
| homosexual".
|
| It doesn't help that most research on the subject seems to be
| from the 70s, and i don't find many recent studies. ( I guess,
| because contemporary science)
| cwkoss wrote:
| Gender dysphoria is usually associated with gender identity
| rather than sexual preference.
| cblconfederate wrote:
| there would be a significant correlation however
| pseudalopex wrote:
| Only if the mechanism is the same.
| cblconfederate wrote:
| I would say that gender identity correlates with sexual
| preference by definition, regardless of mechanism
| protoman3000 wrote:
| 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.
| o_p wrote:
| Why so pessimist? One plastic a day keeps the vasectomy away
| [deleted]
| curation wrote:
| I think of it as evolution.
| ggreer wrote:
| > 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
| forgotmypw17 wrote:
| Sure, but it is also true.
| DC1350 wrote:
| It's called the globohomo agenda and they want to make you weak
| so you can't fight back.
| randomopining wrote:
| 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.
| puppable wrote:
| I don't see what Devo has to do with this...
| NelsonMinar wrote:
| No, the globohomo agenda is turning all the cute young men gay.
| Not you, from your words I can tell you're ugly.
| DC1350 wrote:
| This comment is not appropriate for HN.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| It was a tongue-in-cheek response to the parent (you)
| ecmascript wrote:
| 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.
| ThisIsTheWay wrote:
| 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?
| fogihujy wrote:
| My family and I did the same a few years ago. I wholeheartedly
| recommend it.
| DC1350 wrote:
| Why do you think the solution is farm life and not something
| more primitive?
| mk4p wrote:
| 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/
|
| (Disclaimer: I've invested in his company)
| [deleted]
| yudlejoza wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| csmattryder wrote:
| > Or that we cannot cook ourselves with fresh ingredients,
| ideally grown and sourced locally.
|
| Anecdotally, over the last four years I went from eating pre-
| packaged ready meals every day to knowing my local butcher
| and cooking properly, and I feel a thousand times better than
| I used to.
|
| People ask what future generations will cringe about from our
| lives today and prepackaged foods, ready meals, and fast-food
| will be my pick. Zapping a plastic container in a microwave
| for 3 minutes cannot be good for the food, the container or
| human eating it.
| xorfish wrote:
| > Or just stop, or reduce as much as possible, the amount of
| crap we eat?
|
| Finding out what crap is, is really really hard if you want
| to be scientific. It may be possible for some bigger
| categories.
|
| Reducing is also really, really hard.
|
| Nutrition hasn't been solved for millenia, humans just ate
| what they could eat, if they had enough.
| dqv wrote:
| I'm currently in the process of reducing animal product
| intake. I'm going about it methodically to make it into an
| actual habit rather than a fad where I give up a month or two
| later.
|
| What really got me to accept that maybe animal products might
| be detrimental is Dr. Gregor talking about the exogenous
| endotoxin theory. Dead bacteria in your food, no matter how
| or how long you cook it, will produce an inflammatory
| response. Animal fat may assist these endotoxins due to the
| structure of the gut wall.[0]
|
| When it was put into these terms, it makes it way more
| apparent. The plan is to reduce consumption of animal
| products and when I do want to eat meat, get it from a high
| quality source with a lower endotoxin load.
|
| [0]: https://nutritionfacts.org/video/dead-meat-bacteria-
| endotoxe...
| DC1350 wrote:
| Lots of doctors also recommended an all meat diet. Try both
| and see how you feel.
| dqv wrote:
| I'd have to see a pretty strong argument disproving the
| exogenous endotoxin theory before I'd consider an all
| meat diet. It also sounds like it's a pretty low-fiber
| diet which isn't ideal.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Personally, I stick with what could be called evlution.
| Humans are omnivores, so I aim for a mixed and balanced
| diet, vegitables, meat, fish, animal products like eggs
| and diary, pasta... Preferred cooked at home and baught
| locally (e.g. local farms, even if it is through a super
| market).
| yudlejoza wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| The problem is having 8 billion children to begin with. I
| don't think that problem is solvable.
| yudlejoza wrote:
| So you're saying big-tech and big-money hates scales and
| scalability?
|
| Who do you think bought all those billions of android and
| apple phones and tablets?
| sep_field wrote:
| I agree with you, though, there is no reason we need to eat
| meat at all. The cost to the planet is way too high.
| Vegetarian diets are far healthier for us and our Earth.
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| _Nutrition, being a basic of human survival, has been sovled
| for millenias._
|
| Humans were mostly subsistence cultures for millennia (which
| means a period of a thousand years, so you are saying we
| solved this _thousands_ of years ago). We routinely starved
| to death and only recently figured out something called
| "nutrients" exist in food. It isn't that long ago we
| discovered Vitamin C as the cure for scurvy and it's the
| reason we have nicknames like "limeys."
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limey
|
| That's from the 1850s. Not from two thousand years ago.
| Aerroon wrote:
| Another example of a nutritional disease is beriberi. It
| plagued the Japanese Navy in the 19th century:
|
| > _Beriberi was a serious problem in the Japanese navy:
| Sailors fell ill an average of four times a year in the
| period 1878 to 1881, and 35% were cases of beriberi._
|
| It was caused by a vitamin B1 deficiency. Sailors were
| eating mainly white rice (polished) rather than brown rice
| (unpolished) while underway. A more varied diet eventually
| fixed the problem.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiamine_deficiency
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| We are currently researching the role of various
| nutrients in vulnerability to Covid. (Vitamin D and zinc
| seem to be the most salient nutrients for trying to
| reduce vulnerability, which is not the same thing as
| "curing" it.)
|
| We have barely scratched the surface on the topic of
| nutrition and disease.
| [deleted]
| vincentmarle wrote:
| > 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.
| krageon wrote:
| 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.
| XiJInPaddington wrote:
| 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.
| siltpotato wrote:
| Is the parent article by a plastic producer? I'm tired of
| this priest comparison at every corner.
| loa_in_ wrote:
| Who is "they"?
| pessimizer wrote:
| The upper-middle professional-managerial class who gets to
| make and implement these decisions, and write these
| articles.
|
| edit: More simply, what upper-middle class people usually
| refer to as "everybody."
| silexia wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| > 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]
| nostromo wrote:
| 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.
| eznzt wrote:
| > 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...
| dehrmann wrote:
| Or carpet.
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| 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.
| cameldrv wrote:
| 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.
| boatsie wrote:
| If it's in plastic tubing, would that include all homes
| with pex piping? Water dispensers in refrigerators? Seems
| impossible to get away from.
| cameldrv wrote:
| It will definitely leach from PVC pipe. I'm not sure
| about PEX. Yes to water dispensers in refrigerators.
|
| In general, the problem will be worse with smaller
| diameter pipes/tubes due to surface area/volume ratio,
| worse if the water has been standing in the pipe/tube,
| and worse if the water is hot.
|
| These chemicals are extremely difficult to get away from.
| I saw a study where they tried to get volunteers to take
| a reasonably large set of actions to reduce their levels
| of BPA and Phthalates, and they were able to get them
| down to about half the original levels, but not lower.
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| > I've replaced my soap/shampoo/shaving creams with
| phthalate free versions
|
| How do you identify these? You mean there are products that
| advertise themselves to be phtalate free? Or that you are
| actively looking for phtalate composition in the products
| you buy?
| ashtonkem wrote:
| They'll advertise it clearly on the bottle.
| globular-toast wrote:
| 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.
| m_eiman wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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/
| hef19898 wrote:
| Isn't that common sense anyway? Especially the packaging it
| came with?
| audunw wrote:
| 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.
| soheil wrote:
| What part of taking out the food you buy out of its plastic
| container before microwaving it is impossibly hard?
| nomoreusernames wrote:
| 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.
| krageon wrote:
| This point of view is self-exterminating, which is why having
| it is dumb.
| alfiedotwtf wrote:
| > forcing people to be born without their consent
|
| How could someone consent to be born?
| Nasrudith wrote:
| How can they even be forced when they don't exist for that
| matter?
| wombatpm wrote:
| I was taught that a zygote was just gamates way of making
| more gamates.
| heyoni wrote:
| 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.
| nathias wrote:
| 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?
| spodek wrote:
| > _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.
| forgotmypw17 wrote:
| 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.
| lm28469 wrote:
| > 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Even dry beans come in a plastic bag...
| goatcode wrote:
| 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.
| jimbob45 wrote:
| Yeah this is my issue. I have to drink bottled water for water
| quality reasons. How am I supposed to avoid plastic there?
| ashtonkem wrote:
| Get a water filter and drink tap. They sell filters made
| primarily out of steel.
| atq2119 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Blue plastic bottles leach endocrine disruptors, either BPA
| or BP-S.
| f6v wrote:
| One thing I miss about Germany is S.Pellegrino in glass
| bottles. Since I moved to Belgium it has been incredibly hard
| to come by glass-bottled water.
| seszett wrote:
| I've found glass-bottled water easy to find in Belgium, I
| buy cases of Ginstberg (they have both still and carbonated
| water) in glass bottles in a supermarket here in West
| Flanders.
|
| I know at least a couple places where you can buy it (Huis
| Maria in Harelbeke, Vanuxeem in Ploegsteert, so both
| Flanders and Wallonia) so I would assume those to be
| widespread enough throughout the country.
|
| To me coming from France it was Belgium that was the easier
| place to find glass-bottled water :)
| thorin wrote:
| Can't you just drink tap water, or if it really tastes that
| bad use a water filter. The idea of buying a new bottle
| every time you want a drink of water seems insane to me!
| seszett wrote:
| I assumed they were talking about reused glass bottles.
| Here (so in Belgium) I buy cases of water bottles with a
| deposit and return them empty.
|
| The bottles are reused, and the water tastes a lot better
| than at least my tap water (in Antwerp - the tap water
| comes from a stagnant canal used for merchandise
| shipping, and last year for example it turned green and
| smelled of algae for a while after a ship carrying
| fertilizer capsized).
| triceratops wrote:
| > I have to drink bottled water for water quality reasons
|
| Why is your water quality bad?
| inter_netuser wrote:
| Drink Voss? and re-fillVOSS bottles with distilled water?
|
| You can get distilled water delivered in very large glass
| jugs (4 gallons i think?)
| fhsm wrote:
| Some thought that distilled water may not be desirable:
|
| https://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/dwq/nutrientsch
| a...
| inter_netuser wrote:
| very minor concern vs. benefits you get.
|
| This is mostly about dissolved minerals, carbonates etc,
| and you should be able to control trivially.
|
| I know I would prefer to know exactly what's in my water.
| codr7 wrote:
| There are some pretty decent filters out there that are not
| crazy expensive, guess it depends on how bad the water is
| though.
| robin_reala wrote:
| Filtered water? Sure, the filter cartridges are plastic, but
| I'd guess that you'd reduce your plastic usage in general.
| bloak wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| > 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 wrote:
| _any contaminants will ruin an entire batch. Food is an
| example of such a contaminant._
|
| This is a myth.
| WalterGR wrote:
| (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 wrote:
| 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-...
| fy20 wrote:
| 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
| froh wrote:
| 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-fa...
|
| https://www.tagesschau.de/faktenfinder/kurzerklaert/kurze
| rkl...
| bpodgursky wrote:
| 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?
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Identification as trans or other non-binary status is
| incredibly high among the gen-z cohort.
|
| The highest study estimate I've seen is 3%, almost all others
| are between 0.7% and 1%, with even boomers around 0.5%. (For
| Gen-Z kids, _parental_ belief that children are trans or have
| non-binary identity is many times higher, though, but that 's
| clearly more about social priming than "hormonal poisoning".)
|
| > Might be unrelated social upheaval,
|
| To the extent there is an increase at all, it's probably
| increased awareness of the concept providing a framework to fit
| into than any "hormonal poisoning".
| pseudalopex wrote:
| 3% included people just questioning their gender identity.[1]
|
| [1] https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/141/3/e201
| 716...
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| It's not unreasonable to speculate that it may be one factor.
| It is unreasonable to implicitly assert that it's the only
| factor and the clear singular cause.
| eightails wrote:
| > It is unreasonable to implicitly assert that it's the only
| factor and the clear singular cause
|
| Sure, but did op assert that? I didn't read it that way.
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| It's a distinction that doesn't require the OP to have done
| any such thing for the distinction to be meaningful. Making
| a distinction about what is or is not a reasonable
| inference when someone asks isn't the same thing as
| accusing them of anything.
| eightails wrote:
| I agree, but in that case why bother? In replying with
| such a distinction, the assumption is that you're
| actually responding directly to the op, not just quoting
| truisms.
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| They asked. I felt it was a distinction worth making.
|
| You aren't the OP. Why do you care so much? Why do you
| feel compelled to engage with the words on the screen of
| some internet stranger who likely has a different
| cultural background from you and does things for reasons
| different from yours?
| eightails wrote:
| > Why do you feel compelled to engage with the words on
| the screen of some internet stranger who likely has a
| different cultural background from you and does things
| for reasons different from yours?
|
| Because I like discussing things with other people,
| especially people who might come from different cultural
| backgrounds, do things differently or otherwise hold
| different views from me. It's often interesting and
| educational, helping us both to get different
| perspectives on things.
|
| I won't pose the obvious reversal. Given this
| conversation is certainly not interesting or educational,
| I think it's probably best if we stop here.
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| You are replying to the "obvious reversal." So, yeah, we
| don't need to turn it around a second time. It's already
| beyond silly.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| CryptoPunk wrote:
| It's also entirely possible that cultural factors can
| influence the number of people who develop a homosexual
| sexual orientation. Humans are highly malleable and affected
| by culture.
| pseudalopex wrote:
| Not malleable enough for conversion therapy to work.
| konjin wrote:
| 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.
| foobar33333 wrote:
| I don't think we can come anywhere close to ruling this out but
| of course we also don't know how many people felt this way
| before and hid it so the data is far to muddy to make a clear
| conclusion.
| airhead969 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| You confused a middle schooler for a 19 year old? Yikes.
| airhead969 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| > 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 wrote:
| 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.
| airhead969 wrote:
| Don't patronize or judge me. You're being a rude dick.
| airhead969 wrote:
| My life experiences have nothing to do with ignorant
| generalizations or what you think is impossible. You can
| either accept what I describe with benefit of the doubt,
| or you can be a prick trying to moralize, judge, and
| castigate from the comfort of the armchair quarterback
| chair. It's your choice.
| watwut wrote:
| Our maybe you reacted to breasts and ignored mental
| maturity. And yes, I have experience with 12 years old.
| Their beats size is unrelated to their brain maturity and
| you absolutely can tell them apart from 19 years old.
| slipper wrote:
| You have a hard time believing it possible, so it can't
| be true?
|
| Are you aware that many models you see in magazines are
| only in their early teens, made to look older with
| makeup?
| pb7 wrote:
| It can be true if your judgment is poor.
|
| > Are you aware that many models you see in magazines are
| only in their early teens, made to look older with
| makeup?
|
| I'm not sure what this proves considering you can
| manipulate photos to look like anything. I would be able
| to tell within minutes of talking to them in person -- as
| would any reasonable person -- which is what the
| discussion is about. If you want to go that route though,
| actors are almost universally older than the characters
| they play, especially characters in their teens.
| airhead969 wrote:
| Judgement has nothing to do with my experience.
|
| It can also be true if someone experienced extreme
| precocious puberty from unknown causes, is highly gifted
| and a voracious learner/autodidact, is emotionally
| intelligent, went through some shit in life, and
| basically had to become the "adult" (became authentically
| internally-stronger and didn't fall apart) of the family
| and of siblings when their birth parents were
| irresponsible and infantile. Improbable? Sure. It
| happened. Keep judging, impugning, and denigrating from
| afar.
|
| Have a good day and a productive life. :)
| DC1350 wrote:
| > went through some shit in life
|
| > birth parents were irresponsible
|
| This makes it even worse. You should stop posting before
| somebody contacts the FBI.
| slipper wrote:
| He said nothing illegal happened, so what should the FBI
| do? I wish the FBI could look into people like you.
| DC1350 wrote:
| ok pedo guy
| forgetfulness wrote:
| Dude you got lucky but not in the way you think you did.
|
| You found this kid that had a rough life and that led you
| to bond with her.
|
| That could be something good, but you bonded with her in
| a way that's entirely wrong for an adult to do with a
| vulnerable minor. You got lucky in that you got that
| warning about yourself to try and change a dangerous
| behavior. You don't think of yourself as a predator for
| what you were doing but that's what it makes you.
|
| You may mean no harm but you will cause it if you keep
| down this road.
|
| Look into this critically and seek help instead of
| blathering about puberty.
| DC1350 wrote:
| Is this a joke? Why are you admitting to being attracted to 12
| year old girls on here?
|
| > I felt awful, ashamed, and like a perv monster.
|
| You are
| slipper wrote:
| If she was biologically mature, being attracted to her doesn't
| mean you are a pedophile. Attraction is a result of biology,
| not of man-made laws. It would of course still be illegal to
| date her. The last psychiatrist has written about that, but I
| couldn't find it right away.
| DC1350 wrote:
| This dude dated a middle school girl in his mid 20s and his
| only defence is that her breasts were so big he didn't notice
| she was 12. He might not be a pedophile by definition, but he
| is still a child predator.
| slipper wrote:
| It sounds as if he stopped when he found out about her age.
| You shouldn't let your fantasies rule your judgments.
| refurb wrote:
| 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.
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| The blanket statement of 'endocrine disruptors' takes away
| clarity.
|
| They mainly refer to Bisphenol and Pthalates which are present
| in the majority of Plastics and cleaning products/cosmetics.
| These compounds are chemically too similar to estrogen and are
| processed by your body in pretty much the same way as the
| female hormone.
|
| Evidence on the health effects of Bisphenol and Pthalates:
|
| - Influence in hormone dependent types of cancer
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31471387/
|
| - Influence in Cardiovascular disease
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32438096/
|
| - Influence in Female and male fertility
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31238688/
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32046352/
|
| - Cofactor in Diabetes
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31286379/
| refurb wrote:
| Not going to lie but that 2nd reference is terrible. It's a
| meta-analysis and a bunch of the odds ratios overlap with 1
| (no effect).
|
| I'm not saying endocrine disruptors are harmless, but
| multiple things need to be proven before you can make any
| conclusions:
|
| 1. A specific endocrine disruptor has a negative biological
| effect.
|
| 2. That specific disruptor is found in common items.
|
| 3. That specific disruptor can be leeched out of that item
| through normal use.
|
| 4. The amount leeched out actually gets into the body.
|
| 5. The amount that gets into the body is at a high enough
| level to cause a toxic effect.
|
| I see cell or animal data for #1, #2, but I don't see data
| for #3,4,5.
| jeffreyrogers wrote:
| If there is anecdotal and circumstantial evidence that
| something is bad for you, and most of the people who avoid
| that thing are visibly healthier than those who don't,
| shouldn't you avoid it out of caution?
|
| This is also a sensitive topic to research because it
| impacts an enormous part of the economy if these things are
| shown to be harmful, and in many cases there are not good
| substitutes that are safe and economical.
|
| Edit: And if you disagree with my first point, are you
| consistent in your own life, e.g. did you treat coronavirus
| with the same skepticism? How about mask wearing? There's
| not much high quality of evidence on masks, or at least
| there wasn't early on.
| vmception wrote:
| 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.
| refurb wrote:
| I noticed the book mention as well. I immediately figured it
| was a PR play.
| dehrmann wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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"
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| It wouldn't surprise me if we discover that the exogenous
| disrupters are causing the high obesity rate.
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| In the list of: "practical suggestions" in the article, they
| talk about literally everything except for weight-loss and
| getting in shape.
| cblconfederate wrote:
| This is not limited to US men, similar pattern everywhere in
| western world
|
| https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/sperm-count-dropp...
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| 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.
| dragosmocrii wrote:
| Damn, having watched Children of Men recently, this article is
| chilling
| federona wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| That movie is terribly depressing, and terribly good.
| King-Aaron wrote:
| Upvote for one of the (in my opinion) best movies of our time
| CryptoPunk wrote:
| 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.
| haspoken wrote:
| http://archive.is/gwyni
| tracker1 wrote:
| Generations of low dietary fat, franken-foods and just eating
| garbage. Plastics, it's all part of it.
| master_yoda_1 wrote:
| And the great paywall
| yters wrote:
| 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.
| FriendlyNormie wrote:
| 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.
| inter_netuser wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Are you condoning the destruction of our earth for short term
| profits?
| techbio wrote:
| 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.
| tubularhells wrote:
| Jokes on you, my sperm count fell 100% three years ago, and I
| like it that way.
| simonebrunozzi wrote:
| How comes? A disease, a condition, or what?
| thrwyoilarticle wrote:
| I think OP is hinting at a vasectomy.
| cblconfederate wrote:
| technically not a drop in sperm count
| tuckerpo wrote:
| 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.
| mvh wrote:
| 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-sh...
| esja wrote:
| Some of the other episodes look great as well. Thanks for
| sharing!
| sneak wrote:
| Related: http://vhemt.org/
|
| (one of the oldest websites on this here internet, as well.)
| heyoni wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Humans are with high probability the only chance Earth's
| ecosystem has of surviving the death of the Sun.
| mikkelam wrote:
| 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
| Lammy wrote:
| What global human population could we stabilize at in a climate
| change and/or ecological collapse worst-case? Personally my
| guess is around 500 million or so.
| cblconfederate wrote:
| 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
| arrayjumper wrote:
| > 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 wrote:
| 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
| cblconfederate wrote:
| No , i mean lower sperm/egg quality. Why are people quick
| to jump to extreme conclusions here?
| algorias wrote:
| I think GP meant that lower egg quality leads to more birth
| defects, etc. So not just fewer humans born, but those born
| have more problems. A statement which is completely
| independent from point 1.
| yakshemash wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| > How do you measure the quality of a human
|
| Net worth obviously. Riffraff are mostly worthless
| creatures.
| dragonelite wrote:
| jeez point 2, western chauvinism strikes again.
| nemo44x wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| ahstilde wrote:
| https://www.givelegacy.com/ is helping men protect their
| fertility.
| avsteele wrote:
| 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
|
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| I'd be very wary of any studies that ask people to identify
| "activity level."
| galangalalgol wrote:
| 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/S1871
| 4...
| klmadfejno wrote:
| 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.
| galangalalgol wrote:
| Also we traded cocaine and cigarettes for pot and booze
| (alcohol usage is much higher than the 80s).
| jeffreyrogers wrote:
| If something could be very harmful you should avoid it out of
| precaution. And many of these chemicals are known endocrine
| disrupters, so just because there is no slam dunk evidence
| there is a lot of circumstantial and anecdotal evidence that
| indicates a problem with these substances.
|
| Plus, the people who avoid them are almost invariably
| healthier, so taking steps to avoid them seems to have positive
| effects anyways.
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