[HN Gopher] Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we...
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Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought
Author : Brajeshwar
Score : 509 points
Date : 2022-12-01 14:45 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nationalgeographic.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nationalgeographic.com)
| newaccount2021 wrote:
| fabianhjr wrote:
| Well, interesting to know Children of Men (2006) is a non-
| measure-zero possibility.
| cainxinth wrote:
| I grew up thinking we were headed for a _Star Trek_ -like
| future. But it's looking more like its gonna be _Fury Road_ by
| way of _Children of Men._
| euroderf wrote:
| Interested in a career as a handmaid? Get in on the ground floor!
| kennickv wrote:
| Not mine...
| Dig1t wrote:
| There is an excellent book on this topic called "Countdown". I
| highly recommend it.
|
| The author goes into detail about the causes (mostly phthalates,
| chemicals added to flexible plastics), presents good science to
| back it up, and overall is just very thorough. I found it
| compelling and well written.
|
| Another interesting tidbit presented in the book: the increase in
| the number of trans people is very likely also correlated with
| the decrease in sperm counts (due to phthalate exposure). She
| approaches this subject gingerly, making sure to state that there
| is nothing wrong with being trans; I thought it was well
| presented and thoughtful.
|
| Link to book: https://www.amazon.com/Count-Down-Threatening-
| Reproductive-D...
| Karawebnetwork wrote:
| > the increase in the number of trans people is very likely
| also correlated with the decrease in sperm counts (due to
| phthalate exposure)
|
| There are no studies showing a clear link between trans
| identities and phthlate. Correlation is not causation. It's
| dangerous to push the idea that minorities are caused by
| chemicals. It is pure speculation to suggest that it could
| affect the way a person behaves and responds to societal
| pressures and norms.
| Dig1t wrote:
| _sigh_
|
| Okay, so there is a decent amount of scientific evidence
| suggesting there could be a link. I mentioned in my comment
| that she treats the subject very gingerly, rightly so,
| because people will respond the way you are likely to
| respond.
|
| However, saying that it is dangerous is a very good way to
| shut down the conversation completely, or demonize those
| trying to gather an honest understanding of reality. Consider
| the case that there really is a link. Is it better to wall
| off the conversation completely instead of investigating? Is
| it possible to discuss the topic at all? ever?
|
| I mean, read the book, it is backed by real science it is not
| political at all, not some alt-right hateful thing.
| mrlatinos wrote:
| Feels pretty anti-science to be outraged by discussion of
| current evidence. No one is pushing an idea.
| theandrewbailey wrote:
| _Every sperm is sacred,_
|
| _Every sperm is great._
|
| _If a sperm is wasted,_
|
| _God gets quite irate._
| starkd wrote:
| I knew someone would throw in a Monty Python reference
| eventually. Just had to wait for it.
| kennickv wrote:
| This is bad
| myshpa wrote:
| Male Fertility and Diet https://nutritionfacts.org/video/male-
| fertility-and-diet/
|
| The Role of Diet in Declining Sperm Counts
| https://nutritionfacts.org/video/the-role-of-diet-in-declini...
|
| Dairy Estrogen and Male Fertility
| https://nutritionfacts.org/video/dairy-estrogen-and-male-fer...
|
| Chicken Consumption & the Feminization of Male Genitalia
| https://nutritionfacts.org/video/chicken-consumption-and-the...
|
| Xenoestrogens and Sperm Counts
| https://nutritionfacts.org/video/xenoestrogens-sperm-counts/
|
| Foods That Affect Testosterone Levels
| https://nutritionfacts.org/2017/05/16/foods-that-affect-test...
|
| Dietary Pollutants May Affect Testosterone Levels
| https://nutritionfacts.org/video/dietary-pollutants-may-affe...
|
| Best Foods to Improve Sexual Function
| https://nutritionfacts.org/video/best-foods-to-improve-sexua...
| badrabbit wrote:
| Does this just mean population growth will slow down? Isn't that
| a good thing if so?
| gadflyinyoureye wrote:
| It already has a long time ago. Most of the world's population
| is going to contract hard in the next 15 years. Looks at China.
| They have far too many old people relative to young. It's
| getting worse. Few people to pay for the elderly let alone care
| for them.
| themusicgod1 wrote:
| > They have far too many old people relative to young. It's
| getting worse.
|
| This is not a "it's getting worse" thing...this is
| unambiguously a good thing. China has too many people in it,
| and the earth cannot sustain 8 billion people
| houtanb wrote:
| Several years ago, I switched to products that are EWG verified
| [1], meaning a product's ingredients are safe for humans. Some of
| the EWG verified products are quite expensive, so it took a while
| to find a brand that was affordable and safe to use. I've
| switched everything to that brand (shampoo, conditioner, soap,
| dishwasher and laundry detergent, cleaners, ...).
|
| They even have a search engine that allows you to search for
| products [2] or ingredients. If don't know what's in your
| products, I encourage you to start here to find out more about
| the ingredients.
|
| [1] https://www.ewg.org/skindeep/ewgverified/
|
| [2] https://www.ewg.org/skindeep/
| rubicon33 wrote:
| I am not being sarcastic or facetious when I ask - Do you feel
| noticeably better? Better than placebo (understanding of course
| that such a question is a misnomer, but please address the
| spirit of the question).
| exhilaration wrote:
| _I 've switched everything to that brand_ -- could you share
| that brand? It would save us a lot of research.
| theNJR wrote:
| Yes, please
| snshn wrote:
| I have 0 kids. One is 0, the other one is 0.
| heywherelogingo wrote:
| You don't need sperm if you can't afford housing.
| Dig1t wrote:
| I have been very interested in this topic for the last year.
|
| A huge problem here is the lack of understanding of which
| products have phthalates in them. Most manufacturers don't list
| whether their products contain them, you have to really scour the
| internet to find products specifically listed as not containing
| them.
|
| I don't know much about chemistry, but a real need here is the
| ability to test products for these chemicals. If there were an
| at-home test for their presence or a website or service that
| could test household items, we could take better control of this
| situation. As it currently stands we're left sitting here
| Googling individual products and nobody is really sure what
| chemicals are present in their home.
| berjin wrote:
| It's tough because marketing like 'BPA free' doesn't actually
| mean the product is free of endocrine disruptors. There are
| glass bottles that still have a plastic lid. I've switched all
| my cookware to glass or metal (no teflon). What about wooden
| things that are painted or glued together (plywood)? Is it
| better or worse than plastic? It's just about impossible to
| find soft furniture that isn't covered in plastic fabric.
| hospadar wrote:
| I imagine a personified planet earth loling at this great news
|
| "Hey killer asteroid, this is earth"
|
| "What's up earth?"
|
| "You can hold off, I think the humans are actually going to take
| care of themselves pretty soon"
|
| "Cool, I'll do another orbit for a million years"
| zug_zug wrote:
| So this trend has been going on for a while now, I looked a bit
| into it about 5 years ago here's what I found:
|
| - Tons of popular and legal products/chemicals are "endocrine
| disruptors"[1] (fancy term for mess with hormones).
|
| - The FDA/EPA doesn't deny that, they don't themselves even
| really require tests for long-term health effects in humans (too
| difficult). Instead they give animals a 1000x+ dose and look for
| immediate drastic effects (this is abbreviated "LOAEL"). That's
| the reason we have a xenoestrogen in the lining of soda cans
| (BPA), because we're trusting that tiny doses must be negligible,
| which isn't necessarily a valid assumption [2].
|
| - The attitude on a lot of chemicals is "Safe until proven
| guilty," but when some of these chemicals are suspect (e.g.
| pesticides) instead of a public announcement they are pulled from
| public use quietly prior to the point of definitive evidence.
| New/similar ones can be introduced with presumption of safe until
| proven guilty. (Search PFOAs if you want to get a sense of how
| ineffective our protection mechanisms are)
|
| I came to the conclusion a radically new model is necessary, the
| EPA/FDA need to design models to test for fertility effects,
| perhaps multigenerationally, in their studies (fruit flies?)
| quickly.
|
| My bet is within 20 years we'll see it as the more immediate
| problem than global warming.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endocrine_disruptor
|
| [2] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.2203/dose-
| response....
| badRNG wrote:
| > My bet is within 20 years we'll see it as the more immediate
| problem than global warming.
|
| I don't want to diminish the importance of a paradigm shift in
| how regulators treat various chemicals, but I don't think this
| will be anywhere near as severe and immediate threat as climate
| change.
|
| Ultimately, if there is a substantial pool of people who's
| fertility is _not_ adversely impacted by some yet to be
| identified chemical, then it will be those people who 's genes
| will pass on. Within a generation we as a species will have
| developed resistance to at least the impact on fertility by
| some unregulated chemical.
| ipaddr wrote:
| Global warming importance as an issue is slowly fading as the
| world is changing. Make room for new issues.
| FeepingCreature wrote:
| Ultimately, if there's a substantial pool of people who are
| _not_ existentially threatened by global warming...
| jamiegreen wrote:
| As someone who is too lazy to do their own research on this
| topic....did you happen to find which products generally
| contain the most endocrine disruptors?
| horsawlarway wrote:
| They'll be in basically all of the plastic around you - since
| the chemicals do a good job at plasticizing (making plastic
| less brittle).
|
| If you want a more thorough list, the NIH compiled this
|
| ---
|
| What are some common endocrine disruptors?
|
| Bisphenol A (BPA) -- used to make polycarbonate plastics and
| epoxy resins, which are found in many plastic products
| including food storage containers
|
| Dioxins -- produced as a byproduct in herbicide production
| and paper bleaching, they are also released into the
| environment during waste burning and wildfires
|
| Perchlorate -- a by-product of aerospace, weapon, and
| pharmaceutical industries found in drinking water and
| fireworks
|
| Perfluoroalkyl and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) -- used
| widely in industrial applications, such as firefighting foams
| and non-stick pan, paper, and textile coatings
|
| Phthalates -- used to make plastics more flexible, they are
| also found in some food packaging, cosmetics, children's
| toys, and medical devices
|
| Phytoestrogens -- naturally occurring substances in plants
| that have hormone-like activity, such as genistein and
| daidzein that are in soy products, like tofu or soy milk
|
| Polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDE) -- used to make flame
| retardants for household products such as furniture foam and
| carpets
|
| Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB) -- used to make electrical
| equipment like transformers, and in hydraulic fluids, heat
| transfer fluids, lubricants, and plasticizers
|
| Triclosan -- may be found in some anti-microbial and personal
| care products, like liquid body wash
| comte7092 wrote:
| One of these is not like the others:
|
| > Phytoestrogens -- naturally occurring substances in
| plants that have hormone-like activity, such as genistein
| and daidzein that are in soy products, like tofu or soy
| milk
|
| Your comment doesn't explicitly say that Phytoestrogens are
| only present in soy, but it should be clear that such
| compounds are extremely common, even though people tend to
| single out soy (largely because soy has been the most
| studied for potentially positive health reasons.
|
| Phytoestrogens are present in many different grains,
| legumes, nuts, seeds, vegetables, etc [0]
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phytoestrogen?wprov=sfti1
| Dig1t wrote:
| My partner and I recently embarked on a journey to replace as
| many products in our lives that contain endocrine disrupting
| chemicals (EDC's) as we could. It's _really_ hard.
|
| You have to carefully read product labels, 99.9% of products
| don't contain any info about EDC's, you have to specially
| seek out ones that are labeled as phthalate-free, BPA-free,
| etc.
|
| Biggest offenders are in the kitchen and bathroom. Shampoo,
| conditioner, deodorant, perfume, are big offenders. There are
| special versions of these products you can find but they
| don't usually work as well. Most things that are scented have
| phthalates. Pretty much any food that comes in a flexible
| plastic container, most dairy and eggs have it as well (dairy
| because of the flexible plastic tubing used when pumping
| milk).
|
| One example of a source for milk:
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23138015/
| einpoklum wrote:
| What does "etc." mean?
|
| Also - products which would not reasonably be produced
| with, say, "phtalate" - would probably not be labeled
| phtalate-free anyway. So one first needs to know which
| "X-free" labels to look for.
| Dig1t wrote:
| "etc" in my comment was meant to be other types of
| chemicals people don't necessarily like. Example: many
| deodorants that are phthalate-free are also free of
| aluminum, because people likely to be concerned about
| phthalates are also likely to be concerned about
| aluminum, even though aluminum is not an EDC (some people
| are worried about it being a carcinogen I think). I was
| just saying here that products with "X-free" are
| correlated with also being phthalate-free.
|
| But yeah, specifically the thing to look for is
| "phthalate-free".
| moonchrome wrote:
| This appears to be a global trend.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Perhaps we need to invest in more testing, and then work on a
| whitelist instead of blacklist approach.
| consumer451 wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precautionary_principle
|
| https://www.europarl.europa.eu/thinktank/en/document/EPRS_ID.
| ..
| salawat wrote:
| >Can we get more QA spending?
|
| You already lost.
| njovin wrote:
| I've heard on a few podcasts that this is how European
| countries do this. We need to stop letting for-profit
| companies gamble with the health and longevity of the species
| in the interest of profits.
| Dig1t wrote:
| You are right that this is a much better approach. The
| problem is Europe also has low sperm counts and are also
| being exposed to endocrine disruptors in the same way as
| the rest of the world. So whatever whitelist approach they
| are using does not seem to be saving them from this
| problem.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| _Ultimately, Levine and Swan say that local and global actions
| are needed to reduce or get rid of these chemicals in our
| environments. "We should find ways to prevent further decline and
| even reverse the trends," Levine says. "We must avoid being
| complacent about it and fool ourselves that assisted reproduction
| is the solution."_
|
| But assisted reproduction is extremely profitable and always has
| been, some powdered rhino horn to IVF; altering industries and
| markets is expensive and uncertain, and politicians are for sale
| to the highest bidder. Just 10 large donors spent _$540 million_
| on the recent US midterm elections. The fact that some prominent
| campaigns resulted in a loss does not mean they wasted their
| money, any more than a financial loss in business or gambling
| necessitates the end of a career.
|
| https://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/3720141-here-are-the...
|
| To the extent that fiscal gain is the dominant organizing
| principle of human society, financial wealth is going to continue
| compounding one way or another to the detriment of other measures
| of wellbeing.
| biomcgary wrote:
| Years ago, I published a paper suggesting that humans have
| genomic evidence of strong selection pressure on some sex hormone
| pathways. So, I am quite curious about whether sperm counts are
| plummeting solely because of environmental changes (e.g., human
| created hormone influencing toxins, including "the pill") or also
| because natural selection in humans has drastically changed with
| the advent of modern society.
|
| In species with highly promiscuous females, sperm counts tend to
| go up as a response to competition among males (and their
| cellular representatives). However, in societies that have birth
| control as the norm, pregnancy is primarily a result of conscious
| choice (stable relationship, financial status, etc).
| Consequently, sperm count is under drastically less selection
| pressure because you have multiple shots on goal without much
| reproductive consequences, so to speak.
| nosianu wrote:
| So how do you integrate into your theory the additional fact
| mentioned in that article that sperm count and male health were
| associated?
|
| > _"One can view the decline in sperm counts as a biomarker for
| male health in general," says Kristensen._
|
| > _In fact, a study in a 2018 issue of the journal Andrology
| found a higher risk of hospitalization among men who had lower
| sperm concentrations. Those with sperm concentrations below 15
| million /mL--considered low--had a 53 percent greater risk of
| being hospitalized for any reason over the course of 36 years
| than those with more robust sperm concentrations between 51 and
| 100 million/mL. This effect persisted even after the
| researchers controlled for body weight, smoking, and other
| factors._
|
| Sounds to me like that supports the chemicals theory.
| biomcgary wrote:
| Possibly chemicals, but, alternatively, natural selection has
| been relaxed across the board in the modern societies since
| agriculture and even more after industrialization. How often
| do you see males literally fighting over sexual access to a
| female, which would select for physically healthy males?
|
| Selection pressure for intelligence may have increased, but
| education level is negatively correlated with reproduction,
| so maybe not. Multiple generations of relaxed selection would
| have a cumulative effect on health AND sperm production.
| seydor wrote:
| Wasn't Sexual selection even more weird throughout recorded
| history? Marriage concerns basically was the opposite of SS ,
| where economics and religion trumped natural selection,
| particularly in the western world we re talking about.
|
| Even today millions of people are marrying contrary to
| selection gradients (arranged marriages, marrying relatives,
| too young/old , excluding other religions etc etc.). Do these
| people have lower/higher sperm counts?
| akiselev wrote:
| For the vast majority of recorded history people married
| someone from their village of 200 people or from a nearby
| village a few miles away. It doesn't matter how weird our
| mating rituals are when there's not much variability to begin
| with.
|
| Modern urban cities provide access to a much more diverse
| gene pool which allows individuals to select across a much
| wider range of characteristics.
| dham wrote:
| Just another side effect of sugar industry pushing that "fat" is
| bad. Now no one cooks with butter or lard and use nonstick
| (Teflon) pans which leaches into food and into water sources when
| it's produced.
|
| We need basic cooking classes in high school and have governments
| pushing only stainless steel and iron cookware.
| hirvi74 wrote:
| Butter (sometimes other oils when necessary) and cast iron is
| all I have used for decades now. I jumped on the cast iron
| train around the age of 18 and have never used anything but
| cast iron since. In fact, I still use the same cast iron
| pots/pans I initially acquired 12 years ago. Cast-iron is
| surprisingly non-stick/easy to clean and damn near
| indestructible when responsibly used and maintained properly.
|
| Plus, you can put cast iron pots & pans in the oven, over a
| modest open flame (like a campfire), etc..
| [deleted]
| PakG1 wrote:
| My wife and I have a beautiful daughter about to turn 2. But she
| wouldn't have existed if it weren't for IVF (in vitro
| fertilization). Had to stab her stomach with needles for a while
| to make hormones to mass produce eggs and then they took my sperm
| to put into her eggs and see which ones took. Five viable
| pairings happened. Three were put into her and out came the one
| kid. Other two are in cryo for future use, and hopefully we can
| try them too one day soon. I was hesitant about IVF when I was
| younger, but now I recommend it to anyone who's having difficulty
| conceiving. The doctor showed us my sperm in a petri dish. They
| were tiny in number and so lazy to move compared to a video that
| the doctor indicated to be more healthy sperm. Whatever lifestyle
| changes I need to make to make my sperm better, not sure it can
| be done overnight and my wife was 38 at the time of conception.
|
| Kid is beautiful, stubborn, independently-minded, cute, all of
| it. Would not trade her for the world.
|
| If you're having difficulty conceiving, please consider IVF. We
| tried for 3 years the natural way with no dice.
| bdcravens wrote:
| I have a medical condition where I have no vas deferens. Sadly,
| IVF didn't work. I don't say that to ask for sympathy, but to
| say that my wife went through the same series of needles, etc,
| without the payoff at the end. (Additionally I had to have a
| surgery to remove sperm from the testes, which was painful to
| recover from as you might imagine.) Anyone who embarks on the
| financial and emotional cost of IVF needs to be fully aware of
| the possibility that it won't work.
| greeneggs wrote:
| Note that the CDC collects statistics on assisted
| reproductive technology success rates. Here is the 2019
| report: https://www.cdc.gov/art/reports/2019/pdf/2019-Report-
| ART-Fer... . See especially Figure 3 on page 29 (Percentage
| of embryo transfers that resulted in live-birth delivery, by
| patient age and egg or embryo source). There is more data,
| including from individual clinics, at
| https://www.cdc.gov/art/artdata/index.html .
| onetimeusename wrote:
| jupp0r wrote:
| This and go out and vote for politicians who keep IVF legal and
| expand protections for it.
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| IVF is expensive. Some friends of ours tried it but it didn't
| work. They were out $30K and finally just made peace with the
| fact that they weren't going to have kids.
| jrvarela56 wrote:
| Glad it worked out! My daughter is 8mo now and we had concerns
| going into the 'getting pregnant' phase.
|
| If you can't afford IVF or want to do it another way, there are
| things you can try to do before you start trying to avoid
| surprises - the main goal is to try to assess your status so
| you can align expecatations. It's frustrating to 'get started'
| and think 'it should take about X months' and then not seeing
| it happen (huh sounds familiar to product work?).
|
| First, we always think it's the women's fault (or at least
| society defaults to that nowadays for sure). Men can go to a
| lab and get your sperm tested and check your testosterone
| levels. There are actionables to improve this in >6 months (not
| sure if less).
|
| My wife did all sorts of stuff: checked hormone levels, managed
| her endo with excercise/diet/stress-management, got her period
| into one of those tracking apps to the point it actually
| predicted when ovulation happened (corroborated with home test
| kits).
|
| In summary, I'm not trying to deal out a recipe here - just
| making a point that having a lower-stress attempt at getting
| pregnant can take a while but something can be done if you want
| to avoid cost of IVF or misalignment of expectations when
| 'trying' (we started ~preping - wife more so than me - 2 years
| in advance bc my wife had endo).
| datavirtue wrote:
| Insurance will pay for it. After getting denied a friend of
| our just kept writing letters until they agreed to pay it.
| It's a medical condition.
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| I don't think that is how IVF works, you can't induce an adult
| female to produce eggs in any medically approved way.
| Apparently mammals are born with a finite number of eggs that
| just get used up as they get older.
| zrail wrote:
| OP was probably using "produce" to mean "ovulate", i.e. cause
| an egg to leave an ovary.
| samtho wrote:
| Hormones are injected into the egg-having partner to induce a
| mass release of eggs. Ova are not created in this process.
| bdowling wrote:
| > egg-having partner
|
| "Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological
| battle. That tramples curiosity."
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| mrguyorama wrote:
| You cannot be serious.
| Izkata wrote:
| "egg-having partner" is an extreme far left term that
| tries to work around the hole they dug for themselves
| involving transgender ideology, that the vast vast
| majority of the world does not care for. The non-
| political term is women or wife or female or anything
| else along those lines.
| PakG1 wrote:
| I honestly don't care what words people use though, as
| long as I can understand the words? Egg-having partner
| would fit that description to a pedantic degree.
| teg4n_ wrote:
| y'all are the ones injecting politics into it, ya
| weirdos.
| cecilpl2 wrote:
| Yes, it is indeed how IVF works. You inject fertility drugs
| using a giant needle. It sucks.
| sircastor wrote:
| This is exactly how IVF works. The ovaries generate more
| follicles, which are collected directly out of the ovary.
|
| You can also cause the ovaries to release more eggs during a
| menstrual cycle to increase the likelihood of fertilizing one
| of them. This is IUF.
| bergenty wrote:
| You may not like to hear this but women having a kid past 30
| introduces a lot of potential problems and deficiencies in the
| child.
| Eleison23 wrote:
| That's a myth that the medical establishment wants to sell
| you. Women are fine and have children with no problem, long
| past that artificial "deadline".
|
| https://youtu.be/g9ryP0UyO5U
| spaceman_2020 wrote:
| Not 30 certainly, but once you get closer to 40, your
| chances of running into problems only goes up
| substantially.
|
| Post 35, most couples should have a serious talk about
| kids. There's a healthy chance that you'll run into some
| problems either conceiving or carrying the fetus. Every
| aborted attempt can cost you months or more - a luxury you
| might not have if you're touching 40.
| Aeolun wrote:
| It increases the chances. It doesn't guarantee it by any
| measure.
|
| Only past 40 do you go into 'really need to check' territory.
| CadmiumYellow wrote:
| Women have been having kids past 30 since the dawn of
| humanity. The only difference is that now women tend to be
| older at the time of their FIRST pregnancy. Before the modern
| era women would start having kids in their late teens or
| early 20s and continue doing so until menopause in many
| causes, so that's up til 45-55. Plenty of women are perfectly
| capable of having healthy kids past 30 and even past 40.
| [deleted]
| xienze wrote:
| > and my wife was 38 at the time of conception.
|
| This sounds obvious, but apparently isn't to a lot of younger
| people. 38 is considered quite old to start having children
| (yes it happens, but it's called a "geriatric pregnancy" for a
| reason), and I'm sure it contributed to the difficulties
| conceiving.
|
| A lot of young folks have been convinced that child birth can
| be put off more or less indefinitely while you pursue a career,
| but the longer you wait, the more difficult it becomes. Just
| another piece in the "gee, why are birth rates declining?"
| puzzle.
| atemerev wrote:
| Well here where I live, the median age for a woman giving
| birth is 42. The old normal is not normal anymore.
| Taurenking wrote:
| Eleison23 wrote:
| dang wrote:
| Please stop posting flamewar comments and ideological
| battle comments to HN. You've unfortunately done quite a
| lot of that. It's not what this site is for, and destroys
| what it is for.
|
| If you'd please review
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick
| to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.
| LordDragonfang wrote:
| Fertility rate is pretty much just correlated with GDP per
| capita until around $20k ppp, after which it levels out at
| just below fertility for basically the rest of the graph.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_and_fertility
| mrguyorama wrote:
| >A lot of young folks have been convinced that child birth
| can be put off more or less indefinitely
|
| Young folks haven't been convinced of shit, it's just
| literally not an option. Most young people are barely
| scraping by, can't buy a home, can't rent a medium sized
| apartment, have terrible health care, unreliable or
| unpredictable scheduling, etc etc.
|
| "Oh we made do in earlier times" Yes and a lot of the younger
| generations feel those scars every day, they feel the anxiety
| from not having enough money in the household, and develop
| scarcity mindsets that they will fight for the rest of their
| lives. Of course they don't want to do that to their own
| kids.
|
| Let alone even being in a relationship at all, one that's
| stable enough that you genuinely believe you will be together
| for at least 20 years.
|
| Young adults aren't putting off kids "to pursue a career", we
| are trying desperately to survive in a world that was picked
| clean by previous generations and kneecapped before we got a
| chance at it.
| thehappypm wrote:
| Another lesson from your story (similar to many of my friends')
| is to just have kids younger. It sounds like you started at
| around 35 -- if people started at 30, even, fertility is
| higher.
| nicholasjarnold wrote:
| Yep, I can confirm this based on personal experience with a
| gynecologist telling my wife that at 35 the pregnancy is
| considered a "geriatric pregnancy" (apparently some docs now
| call it "AMA"...advanced maternal age).
|
| This shocked both of us, frankly. We were aware of what the
| actuarial tables will tell you regarding birth defect rates
| related to maternal age, but hearing the term geriatric in
| your mid-thirties is quite shocking. I'm ignorant of any data
| around paternal age and sperm count (assume it goes down...no
| idea the rate), but the docs do tend to focus on maternal age
| quite a bit regarding possible defects and fertility.
|
| Nonetheless we were able to conceive in our late 30s without
| help or any trouble. Our baby is super healthy. Apparently we
| lucked out.
| dionidium wrote:
| My mother-in-law who is in her 60s thinks she's "too young"
| to be called grandma. She's being a little bit tongue-in-
| cheek, but I routinely hear people say, "oh he was so
| young" after some 65-year-old celebrity dies of a heart
| attack. Increasingly, I just have no idea what's going on
| in people's heads when they think about age. Sixty is not
| "young." Thirty-five is not "young" with respect to
| fertility.
|
| People need to get a grip on their mortality, man.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Yep. I'm in the latter half of my 50s and defintely don't
| feel young, at least physically. 60 is getting old.
| Anthing past 70 is a gift, IMO.
| PakG1 wrote:
| And yet, we have presidential candidates in their 80s and
| Americans seriously don't prefer younger candidates to
| win their primaries for whatever reason. Something is
| really messed up there.
| Eleison23 wrote:
| quest88 wrote:
| Please provide references showing it's bullshit.
| Foobar8568 wrote:
| Considering how fast birth defect raise after 35...yeah
| not bullshit at all.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| Just so we're all clear, this is now an internet fight
| with opposing claims and zero sources.
| Foobar8568 wrote:
| Because any search with pregnancy risk 35 would result in
| hits on any medical journals, health website with the
| actual sources.
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2729989/
|
| https://www.nct.org.uk/pregnancy/tests-scans-and-
| antenatal-c...
|
| Seriously, people are just lazy.
| Retric wrote:
| You can basically draw a straight line for female
| fertility declining between 90% at 31 and 5% at 40.
| https://www.britishfertilitysociety.org.uk/fei/at-what-
| age-d...
|
| Calling the second half of that geriatric is completely
| appropriate because you're dealing with significant age
| related declines.
| notinfuriated wrote:
| > Nonetheless we were able to conceive in our late 30s
| without help or any trouble. Our baby is super healthy.
| Apparently we lucked out.
|
| Same here, without 'trying' either (as in, we were not
| actively trying to get pregnant). It was surprising for us
| to hear the term "geriatric pregnancy" as well, and the
| ob/gyn seemed to utter out loud a lot of the worst
| assumptions about what could happen in the pregnancy. She
| also seemed somewhat surprised and judgmental that our baby
| wasn't conceived using IVF, which was a bit off-putting but
| she was otherwise a great doctor.
|
| Worst thing that happened during the pregnancy was some
| sort of bladder issue caused by the baby being seated in
| her mom's pelvic floor or something. Not really a
| complication for the fetus, just for her mom being unable
| to pee without a catheter. I suspect this was more of an
| mechanical/anatomical effect that would have occurred
| regardless of age, but I wouldn't know. The baby also had a
| bit of an elevated respiratory rate when born, but she's
| fine now.
|
| That said, my impression of the whole process was that this
| plays out quite differently for everyone. Ours was
| surprisingly easy, especially the labor part. I'm left
| wondering how well they've controlled for factors like the
| physical fitness of the mother (and father, perhaps), any
| genetic factors, etc. when trying to figure out how likely
| fertility issues, birth defects, or other problems occur
| based on age of the parents. Is there not also a generally
| higher correlation to poorer physical health as people age?
| moonchrome wrote:
| >Yep, I can confirm this based on personal experience with
| a gynecologist telling my wife that at 35 the pregnancy is
| considered a "geriatric pregnancy" (apparently some docs
| now call it "AMA"...advanced maternal age).
|
| This used to be after 30 not that long ago around here
| PakG1 wrote:
| LOL, didn't get married until later, wouldn't have been
| possible for me back then. Takes two to tango. Which is of
| course another societal question. Why are people finding it
| difficult to partner up and settle down earlier in life? I
| know what my reasons were, I was idiotic, picky, shy, you
| name it. https://xkcd.com/439/
| droopyEyelids wrote:
| Fertility isn't the only consideration with having children
| when you're old.
|
| Skin elasticity and athleticism decreases with age, and that
| translates into worse tearing, and more difficult births,
| longer recovery, and more trouble keeping up with a baby
| after all that.
|
| Then, on top of all that, your parents are entering their
| sunset years rather where _you_ have to help _them_ rather
| than having grandparents young enough to help you with your
| kids.
|
| It's also linked to things like low birth weight. I sure wish
| my wife & I had started earlier.
| Aeolun wrote:
| Can you imagine having two generations of kids at 20 years
| old? 'Grandma' will be 40 when she has her first grandkid.
| clusterhacks wrote:
| This was very common in my extended family in rural North
| Carolina. Most of my cousins didn't attend college,
| partnered up quickly, and started families. Not always in
| that precise order . . .
|
| Honestly, I think for them it just wasn't that odd in
| their community. I grew up in a more suburban area and
| the baby boom was definitely a few years later
| comparatively speaking.
|
| I have several aunts and uncles who are great-
| grandparents and in the 60-70 year old range.
| duffyjp wrote:
| I'm 41 and my boys are 4 and 8. It's wild to even
| consider I could have been a grandfather by now if my
| life choices had been different. Wouldn't be such a bad
| thing though, at 40 you're still pretty young so I
| could've had my freedom back by now. As it is I'll be 55
| by the time they're out of the house and probably won't
| be able to pick mountain biking back up...
|
| And then if they wait a while I could be pushing 70
| before my grandkids arrive. Great-grandkids might be a
| relic of a time gone by...
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| > Great-grandkids might be a relic of a time gone by
|
| They seem to be the case for me. My five are 20-30. I see
| no avenue for grandkids where it takes 3-4 incomes to
| afford minimal living expenses.
| patja wrote:
| I find it surprising that this is something that has to
| be imagined. I run into real world examples of this all
| the time. It isn't the norm, but it sure isn't something
| that requires imagination to see all around us.
| [deleted]
| yamtaddle wrote:
| Yeah, it'd be fuckin' great because the grandparents
| could help out a lot more, get active quality time with
| their grandkids when they're old enough to remember it
| instead of being that furniture-like senile person stuck
| in a chair of whom they have few fond memories, and so
| on.
| Ancapistani wrote:
| That sounds normal to me.
|
| I was born when my mother was 17. I had my first daughter
| when I was 25 (and therefore her grandmother was 42). I'm
| 38 today.
| SamPatt wrote:
| I got married at 20 and had my first child at 22. I'll
| likely be a grandparent in my 40s.
|
| From a selfish perspective, I was too young to really
| understand what I was taking on, and it's been difficult
| at times. I missed out on many things. Not much of my
| adult life has been focused solely on my needs.
|
| However from a family perspective, it has worked out
| quite well. I worked some difficult jobs at first but
| eventually got my degree, started a career, left to
| cofound a startup, bought a house. Kids are doing well.
|
| People think you have to do all that before you have
| kids, but that's not true. When you're already young,
| kinda dumb and kinda poor then you can make it work.
|
| I'm now 37 and my youngest is 10, so I'm not running
| around chasing kids anymore. I've got enough energy to
| help them with school. I like being a young dad now.
| derivagral wrote:
| I broke this trend in my family. When I met my then-
| partner's parents in undergrad, they were of similar age
| to my grandparents. Didn't bother us, but I think they
| were surprised.
| satvikpendem wrote:
| I can imagine (and know many people like this). It's
| pretty common in non-Western or poorer countries where
| people had kids earlier due mainly to economic reasons
| (and also lack of availability of birth control).
| agentwiggles wrote:
| This has probably been the default situation for most of
| history I'd think.
|
| Great-grandma would 60, and hell, with some luck, great-
| great-grandma might have been kicking around still at 80!
| [deleted]
| yumaikas wrote:
| I mean, a _lot_ of people may not have the financial option
| to have had kids younger. Like, the last 15 years have
| included two "completely upend your life" level crises,
| along with a lot of smaller crises that could have swept up
| someone.
| Aeolun wrote:
| I dunno, kids may be incompatible with a lot of lifestyles,
| but I wouldn't call them inherently expensive. You just
| have to adjust your expectations.
| iamthepieman wrote:
| We estimated that it costs 1.5 million to raise our kids
| just based on opportunity cost. If we factored in
| increased health insurance rates, and all the other
| expenses around having multiple children including
| needing to own a bigger car and house, factor out the tax
| credits in the US, it's more like 2.25 million. This is
| for a very moderate salary estimation for the non-working
| spouse.
| doubled112 wrote:
| I'm always confused about the bigger car thing, and I
| think it's marketing hard at work.
|
| I'm getting myself, my wife, and my two kids to BMX
| practice (yes, with bikes) in a compact sedan.
|
| What are people filling all that space with? Do you pack
| like you're crossing the Sahara every time you leave the
| house?
|
| I came back and added this:
|
| If houses were still built like they used to be, with
| walls and separation, it'd be easier to fit more people
| and stuff into fewer square feet, but even a roomy new
| home feels like there's always somebody with you.
|
| I'd love to move into something small and inexpensive,
| but my 2 bedroom town home will have to do for the time
| being. Works just fine for us.
| waboremo wrote:
| >adjust your expectations
|
| That's just another way to say they're inherently
| expensive. If they weren't, why are you adjusting your
| expectations?
|
| I do think we exaggerate greatly how expensive kids are,
| for the most part the "exchange" is in time and not
| money. However, they are still a noticeable cost
| especially in countries with not great support systems.
| willcipriano wrote:
| > for the most part the "exchange" is in time and not
| money.
|
| I agree. If you can have one person stay home kids are
| pretty cheap. My wife won't stay home, but if we could
| swap salaries I'd do it myself in a heartbeat.
| netjiro wrote:
| Even in super socialized Sweden the first child costs
| around 180 000 USD (2021) [1] for the median example
| family. Second child is probably less expensive.
|
| [1] https://seb.se/privat/livet/att-skaffa-barn/sa-
| paverkar-ett-...
| [deleted]
| afavour wrote:
| I dunno how you can say that. When children are young you
| have two options:
|
| - both parents work, you pay for childcare
|
| - one parent drops out of the workforce, takes care of
| children at home
|
| neither of these is cheap. Decades ago it was realistic
| for one parent's salary to cover the whole family but
| these days salary stagnation and increased costs of e.g.
| housing makes it much more difficult.
| rsj_hn wrote:
| That's assuming you live alone or have no nearby
| friends/relatives who can watch your child. Most of the
| world somehow has kids without spending huge sums,
| because they have children when they are much younger and
| rely on nearby family to help, just as you will gladly
| help your children, etc.
|
| This is how civilization propagates. The idea that only
| the wealthiest can afford to have kids by living in pure
| isolation and hiring teams of nannies and specialists is
| contradicted by the practice of opening one's eyes,
| looking around, and observing much poorer people having
| kids just fine.
|
| But it requires making sacrifices. Those societies in
| which few are willing to make the sacrifices necessary
| die out, and healthier societies take their place.
| afavour wrote:
| > That's assuming you live alone or have no nearby
| friends/relatives who can watch your child.
|
| Yes it is, because those friends and relatives _also_
| have to work in order to afford housing, healthcare,
| etc... grandparents that are happily retired, living off
| their savings and happy to donate their time is not close
| to a reality for many people.
|
| > observing much poorer people having kids just fine
|
| Define "just fine". I'm responding to the OP saying that
| having kids is "not expensive". It is. The fact that
| people make do, struggle and get by does not alter that
| fact, it just means they're doing it anyway. 1 in 6
| children in the US lives in a food insecure home, that's
| not particularly "fine".
|
| > Those societies in which few are willing to make the
| sacrifices necessary die out, and healthier societies
| take their place.
|
| O...kay? I'm not sure a perspective that's this
| disconnected from personal lives is all that helpful.
| "Yes, raising a child in America in 2022 is difficult but
| don't worry, society will die and a new one will rise"...
| what's my reaction supposed to be there?
| gourabmi wrote:
| > Those societies in which few are willing to make the
| sacrifices necessary die out, and healthier societies
| take their place.
|
| I think the comment means is that you can't have the cake
| and eat it too. Whether or not you want to make
| sacrifices in order to have kids, those choices will have
| consequences. Especially when sufficient number of people
| are doing it at the same time. The claim seems to be that
| the societies which prioritize sacrifices in order to
| raise children will outlives the ones that choose
| otherwise. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Who
| knows.
| necrotic_comp wrote:
| This is so sanctimonious and makes me angry.
|
| Part of having kids is wanting your kids to have a life
| that's as good as, or better, than your current life. You
| want to give them all of the possible opportunities they
| can have in addition to instilling them with the values
| you deem important.
|
| When I was in a position to potentially have a family, I
| realized that despite my good-on-paper job, my partner
| and I would not be able to afford any semblance of a good
| life if we stayed where we were living, and if we moved,
| I would never be able to see my family - all I would do
| is work and commute. I had to say no and it led to the
| dissolution of our relationship.
|
| I don't have family around me, I don't have the option of
| having family around me, and it makes me angry that you
| say that I just need to "open my eyes" and see how the
| poor people do it.
|
| Take a deep breath and reflect on what you said, please.
| [deleted]
| caeril wrote:
| No. Absolutely wrong.
|
| Homes are _much_ larger now than in 1955. Cars are being
| purchased with far more (expensive) features, and they
| are driven for fewer miles before being "upgraded". We
| eat out _much_ more. Even when we eat in, we eat more
| luxurious meals. We buy Frappuccinos daily, we buy
| clothing _much_ more frequently, we impulse shop
| significantly more, we utilize medical services much more
| frequently, we take far more, and more luxurious
| vacations, we rack up ludicrous levels of student debt
| for degrees that have no hope of servicing said debt,
| etc, etc, etc.
|
| We are wealthier today than at any point in human
| history. The myth that all homes must be two-income is
| predicated on the outrageous lifestyles we choose, NOT
| due to anything inherent in "society" or "the economy".
|
| Our insane consumerist appetite is what's preventing one
| household member from staying home, nothing else.
| wintermutestwin wrote:
| >Homes are much larger now than in 1955.
|
| Homes are not larger necessarily because of our "insane
| consumerist appetite." They are larger because:
|
| 1. Housing is an investment vehicle 2. Housing valuations
| are primarily driven by SQFT/SQM (when you rule out
| location) 3. The baseline costs of building (permits,
| utility connections, etc) are not driven by size and make
| up a huge % of the cost to build. 4. Zoning laws prohibit
| smaller builds and multi-family in many areas.
| afavour wrote:
| I'm sorry but this is profoundly out of touch with the
| way a lot of people live. "We" is doing a huge amount of
| reaching in absolutely everything you're saying.
|
| > We are wealthier today than at any point in human
| history.
|
| Wealth disparity is also higher today than since records
| were started. You can't cite overall wealth without
| factoring that in.
|
| My neighbourhood has a church which holds a weekly food
| bank, giving out a bag of food to anyone that needs one.
| The line goes far down the street every week. Do these
| people have "outrageous" lifestyles? Do you think they
| take luxurious vacations and sip frappuchinos? Not to
| mention:
|
| > Homes are much larger now than in 1955.
|
| Okay, how about... affordability? If you're going to
| claim housing is more affordable than it was in 1955 I'm
| going to need to see a citation.
| PuppyTailWags wrote:
| I'm going to seriously disagree with your depiction:
|
| - frankly fraps, daily, are a magnitude of order smaller
| than childcare. You could deprive yourself of a frap
| every day for literally years, and you still couldn't
| afford even 6 mo of daycare.
|
| - we need to buy clothing more frequently because our
| clothing quality is shit, and the good clothing quality
| has increased in expense
|
| - if you think adult humans consume medical services too
| often you're in for a fucking shock of your life when it
| comes to babies, which _being pregnant is a consumption
| of medical services_
|
| - even small homes are much less affordable than in 1955
| because the price of land has drastically increased
| compared to 1955
|
| - student debt is taken on because we know for a fact
| that college graduates statistically outearn people
| without college degrees, outliers aside, and the cost of
| schooling has ballooned for a variety of reasons, _one of
| which is that the previous generation had voted to
| withdraw funding for schooling_
|
| One household member staying home is also supremely
| dangerous for that one household member at home, which
| wasn't a problem in 1955 raping your wife was legal and
| women couldn't even own fucking bank accounts so it
| wasn't like women had great options besides staying home!
| If staying home was so good how come women immediately
| got the fuck out of the house as soon as it was available
| to them?
| dionidium wrote:
| > Decades ago...
|
| Even if we accept the (I think dubious) claim that we're
| worse off than people were in the 1950s (or whatever)
| there's thousands of years of procreation that precede
| that one specific comparison. Those people had it much
| worse than we do and they had many more children.
| [deleted]
| afavour wrote:
| I never understand perspectives like these. The OP's
| statement was "having children is not expensive". How
| does "people had it worse a thousand years ago" relate to
| that? Surely by that logic we can't take issue with any
| facet of modern life?
| dionidium wrote:
| No, you misunderstood. If somebody says, "I have only
| $10, I can't afford to do X" then the existence of
| millions of people who did X on $6 is _directly
| relevant_. It 's not an abstract appeal to, "perk up,
| people used to have it worse!" It's a refutation of an
| explicit claim.
| afavour wrote:
| You don't think that's a simplistic analysis? For that to
| be true all external factors would have to remain
| constant and they obviously haven't.
| dionidium wrote:
| Yes, it's very simplistic, but I think directionally
| correct.
| BeFlatXIII wrote:
| We have a societal problem when the rational individual
| choice (to provide your children the best head start) is to
| wait until your fertility declines to have children.
| sneak wrote:
| It seems to me the rational _individual_ choice (speaking
| of the planning of the timing of kids, before having them)
| would be to not have kids at all? Kids take resources away
| from the individuals who have them.
| onion2k wrote:
| _...rational individual choice..._
|
| It's a choice in the same sense that I've _chosen_ not to
| buy a Ferrari because I can 't afford one.
| dionidium wrote:
| This really doesn't make any sense. We are not poorer
| than our ancestors and they figured it out. People have
| convinced themselves that the requirements for having
| children are far beyond what they actually are.
|
| In fact, I think it's precisely our wealth that scares
| people about the prospect. You're going to have to trade
| away some of that wealth to have children and people are
| understandably nervous about that.
| dionidium wrote:
| That would suggest that, in fact, it is _not_ the rational
| choice. People are too precious about having kids. And when
| I say "people" I mean me. I waited until I was 40. That
| was stupid. I should have started sooner. Everything would
| have been fine.
| waboremo wrote:
| While true, the desire to push everyone into heavy
| productivity mode from ages 18-55 are a societal problem,
| there is also a financial (and educational) problem where
| solutions to combat the aging fertility problem are often
| locked behind procedures that cost more than a year's
| salary for majority of people.
|
| An example of this is that freezing your eggs costs upwards
| of $30k, and is still viewed as something only very select
| late 30's successful women do.
| moonchrome wrote:
| >An example of this is that freezing your eggs costs
| upwards of $30k, and is still viewed as something only
| very select late 30's successful women do.
|
| Isn't that also very unreliable ? When we went to IVF
| clinic they told us that freezing the eggs has much lower
| chance of them being usable compared to fertilized eggs.
| skorpeon87 wrote:
| Even if you make egg freezing cheap, it will still have
| an abysmal success rate (particularly if a woman waits
| until her 30s to have the eggs freezed), and should
| rationally be viewed as a hail Mary of last resort. This
| should not be viewed as the default rational path towards
| pregnancy, even if it were free. A society which is
| structured to encourage this path is setting people up
| for serious disappointment.
| rconti wrote:
| It seems fairly natural that a couple in most societies
| (current and historical) would be better able to provide
| for their children the older they are.
|
| The main exception I can think is family support; having
| younger grandparents and great grandparents could be an
| advantage, I guess?
|
| I'm not sure I'd look at a society where people have lots
| of children so they can put them to work and say "yeah,
| this is the way society should be!"
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > It seems fairly natural that a couple in most societies
| (current and historical) would be better able to provide
| for their children the older they are.
|
| When I was born in 1991 and my sister in 1995, a simple
| police officer and a nurse in half-time could provide for
| two children with ease, in one of what was even back then
| one of the most expensive cities in Germany. Today, me
| (IT worker) and my s/o (public health administration) can
| barely afford a flat and two cats.
|
| Fuck that shit, we need rent controls, higher wages and
| higher taxes on the rich. Then people like me are not
| forced to wait until 35 that they can start having
| children.
| moonchrome wrote:
| I was under the impression that programming and IT is
| very undervalued in Germany, like you're basically
| earning slightly above average in most cases. At least
| that's what I gather from two friends who live there.
| vardump wrote:
| Rent in Germany is really really cheap. Even in
| "expensive" cities.
|
| Energy, on the other hand, not so.
| dzonga wrote:
| actually you need more market based rent. remove
| restrictions that incentivize people not to build
| housing. tax the rich on land value - which means not
| have empty lots build a lot of houses encourage a dynamic
| market that rewards labor and boom you've achieved low
| rents, high wages
| jeffreyrogers wrote:
| In western countries historically men were typically a
| bit older than their wife but the wife usually was fairly
| young still. Definitely way younger than now. I think the
| average maternal age in the US is close to 30 now. This
| was a rational arrangement since women had fewer economic
| opportunities. Now women can do basically everything men
| can do so they choose to defer pregnancy, which has its
| own consequences that people are now learning to manage
| and deal with through IVF, egg freezing, etc.
|
| Interestingly, genetic mutations from the mother are
| roughly constant regardless of her age. Paternal genetic
| mutations rise with age. IIRC a 38 year old man's sperm
| has double the number of mutations a 28 year old man has.
| wizofaus wrote:
| On that last point, isn't that because all eggs are
| produced in-utero and stored for later use (no new eggs
| can be produced), whereas sperm is manufactured on
| demand?
| jeffreyrogers wrote:
| That's my assumption, but I don't know the mechanism by
| which sperm mutations occur.
| herrrk wrote:
| You sure about that? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/West
| ern_European_marriage_pa...
| jeffreyrogers wrote:
| > In Yorkshire in the 14th and 15th centuries, the age
| range for most brides was between 18 and 22 years and the
| age of the grooms was similar; rural Yorkshire women
| tended to marry in their late teens to early twenties
| while their urban counterparts married in their early to
| middle twenties. In the 15th century, the average Italian
| bride was 18 and married a groom 10-12 years her senior.
| An unmarried Tuscan woman 21 years of age would be seen
| as past marriageable age, the benchmark for which was 19
| years, and easily 97 percent of Florentine women were
| married by the age of 25 years while 21 years was the
| average age of a contemporary English bride.
|
| > Ireland's average age of marriage in 1830 was 23.8 for
| women and 27.47 for men where they had once been about 21
| and 25, respectively, and only about 10% of adults
| remained unmarried;[22] in 1840, they had respectively
| risen to 24.4 and 27.7;[23][24] in the decades after the
| Great Famine, the age of marriage had risen to 28-29 for
| women and 33 for men and as much as a third of Irishmen
| and a fourth of Irishwomen never married due to chronic
| economic problems that discouraged early marriage.
|
| Doesn't really contradict what I said, although the age
| gap between bride and groom was fairly variable (but no
| country that I'm aware of has a pattern of older bride,
| younger groom).
| giantg2 wrote:
| I mean, maternal genetic mutations aren't strictly age
| related. However, damage from toxins, other environmental
| factors, and developmental issues related to hormone
| levels generally track with age. I wouldn't be surprised
| to find out paternal fertility issues are truly the same,
| but that age is a an easy proxy.
| creaturemachine wrote:
| Monetarily maybe, but not physically. I'm 42 with a
| 5-year-old and man do I wish I was doing this in my 30's.
| PakG1 wrote:
| Had those times when your back seized up and you couldn't
| even lie down properly? :) Been there, done that. If only
| I had developed better exercise habits when younger.
| Well, better late than never, though that late sometimes
| feels like never.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| There is also a lot of pressure on women to "have a career"
| which contributes to them waiting to marry and have kids.
| It's not really possible to optimize both being a mother
| and having a career, it's all tradeoffs and those who
| choose motherhood and a more domestic life are made to feel
| like they have sacrificed or lost out on something.
| firstfewshells wrote:
| And who exactly is putting this pressure on women? Most
| men would choose a healthy, fertile woman over a career
| oriented one. I do think it's women that are taking on
| the pressure themselves in their quest to have it all.
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| Problem is that a lot of people aren't in a position to have
| kids at 30 mainly due to economic reasons.
| skwirl wrote:
| This common explanation never made sense. Lower income is
| correlated with higher fertility within the US, within
| every country, across the world, and (seemingly) throughout
| history.
| oneoff786 wrote:
| Most of history is subsistence farming economies. More
| people means more labor. It's a pretty good ROI. And of
| course, lack of contraception. Plus with kids dying you
| need several to reliably end up with a few when you're
| old.
|
| In an urban economy kids are largely dead weight and
| expensive for two decades. The middle class dual income
| family isn't typically looking for 3+ kids anymore.
| skwirl wrote:
| The fertility rate _today_ in the United States is
| inversely correlated with income. The effects are not
| minor, either. As far as I 'm aware, there's not much
| subsistence farming going on in the United States.
| abyssin wrote:
| I agree. We shouldn't pressure people to make children early,
| but make sure they understand the consequences of delaying.
| I'm surrounded by couples of 30-35 year old that are
| struggling to have children. They had no idea it would be so
| hard.
| spaceman_2020 wrote:
| I'm 35, wife is 34. We've had no problems conceiving but it
| hasn't been smooth sailing post conception at all. Had one
| molar pregnancy, one missed miscarriage of a Mono/Di twin,
| and we're now onto our third term.
|
| Although these issues can prop up at any age, the
| statistical chance of something going wrong keeps going up.
| Moreover, there's the constant fear with every miscarriage
| that we're getting even older and even more likely to run
| into bigger problems.
|
| I'm honestly surprised by how little people talk about
| these issues.
| fhd2 wrote:
| I started at 24 - certainly regret nothing, but I also can't
| say it was the smoothest path :D Trying to provide and care
| while being new to the job market was quite a ride.
|
| There's been some changes to make having kids less of a
| challenge in recent years - at least in Europe. But it still
| seems like there's a long way to go, especially in terms of
| corporate cultures that, in my experience, don't really know
| what to do with young parents.
| Aeolun wrote:
| > corporate cultures that, in my experience, don't really
| know what to do with young parents
|
| What do they not know? I've been mostly treated fairly (not
| exactly a young parent though).
| agentwiggles wrote:
| I'll share an experience.
|
| My (now) wife and I got pregnant in our senior year of
| college. That summer I had the good fortune to land my
| first software dev internship.
|
| At the end of the summer, I was to be given an offer
| letter to come on as a full time employee after I
| finished school. I asked in that meeting if I could just
| continue to work and was told "uh yeah, that's fine I
| guess". Major victory for me at the time.
|
| I did not share that I was soon to be a father until a
| few weeks before the baby was due. I was afraid that this
| situation would negatively color their perceptions of me
| and my work. But eventually the time came.
|
| I pulled my tech lead aside and asked if I would be able
| to take a few days off for the birth. He said of course,
| but, at the time, I was still an hourly employee. My
| first son was born on Tuesday, I took unpaid time off for
| the rest of the week, then returned to the office less
| than a week after my son was born, the following Monday.
| I really had no other choice - I had been working for
| about 5 months at the time, and certainly couldn't afford
| to take any more hit to my paycheck.
|
| About a month later, I asked HR if I had any kind of PTO
| accrued to take some time off for Christmas. This wound
| up being how I became a salaried employee - they felt bad
| that I didn't have PTO and said basically "oh, well,
| you're full time now anyway, we'll just convert you to
| salary."
|
| I want to be clear that there was no malice or anything
| involved in any of these situations, and as a matter of
| fact, the company was very supportive and provided an
| absolutely wonderful first job. But still, there was just
| no procedure or infrastructure in place to support a 23
| year old father. Everything that was done to help me
| through my internship and eventually full time employment
| was in some sense a just-in-time hack, done by kind
| people who knew and cared about me.
|
| Had my career started at Accenture or some other gigantic
| corporate machine, I assume none of those things would
| have happened for me, even if the HR people were
| similarly benevolent. Even with all my good fortune,
| being a parent within the first few months of my
| professional career was difficult.
|
| Nowadays, 6 weeks of parental leave seems to be pretty
| standard for professional jobs, and I imagine that
| benefit would extend even to someone at the entry level
| (maybe not an intern, but FTEs). But this is a pretty
| recent development. When my second child was born, I took
| a week off.
|
| Later that year, the company implemented a single week of
| paternal leave for new parents , which you would just
| receive as an extra 5 days of PTO. A very kind and good
| technical manager, without my asking, went to bat for me
| and got me the week of PTO refunded, effectively
| grandfathering me into the new benefit. No one had to do
| that for me, it didn't even occur to me to ask - but I
| have remembered that act of care from him for a long
| time.
|
| So, all told, I had a pretty good level of company
| support as a young parent. But it's quite easy for me to
| imagine that any of these strokes of fortune wouldn't
| have occurred for many others in similar situations.
| icoder wrote:
| Please be aware that this highly depends on the country!
| pc86 wrote:
| None of this is specific to being a parent, and I'm not
| sure being a young parent (as opposed to middle-aged or
| elderly) requires any sort of special consideration.
|
| Had you started at Accenture it wouldn't have been any
| worse, but you probably would not have gone weeks
| (months?) as a full-time unsalaried employee with no PTO.
| cortesoft wrote:
| Having kids younger is not a simple choice. My wife was
| already 35 when we met, we couldn't have started younger.
| ed25519FUUU wrote:
| I think the idea is that many societal choices need to be
| moved up, not just the decision to have children.
| arglebargle123 wrote:
| For that to be viable people need to A: not leave
| academia with 5-15y of debt as a matter of course and B:
| housing suitable for young families needs to, I don't
| know, actually exist where the decent jobs are. Until
| those changes happen kids aren't going to be a popular
| choice before one (or more likely both) parents have a
| well established career and significant amounts of money
| in the bank.
| dr-detroit wrote:
| AuryGlenz wrote:
| As an addendum, for us IUI (intrauterine insemination) was a
| complete waste of money. My sperm counts were largely fine and
| it might make sense if you believe it's your primary issue -
| for unexplained infertility I don't believe it makes sense.
| mcv wrote:
| We tried IUI to conceive our second child, and after a couple
| of months of trying, my wife got tired of it, we stopped
| temporarily, and just then she got pregnant.
|
| No idea if IUI helped or not, but we got a great kid out of
| it.
| [deleted]
| sircastor wrote:
| We did IVF and have a wonderful little boy. Would do it again
| to have our kid, but my goodness, the expense was overwhelming.
| We had to go into a non-trivial amount of debt to do IVF and I
| don't know how anyone makes it work (short of what we did) we
| tried for 8 years to conceive naturally.
|
| Tangentially, we spent some time looking at adoption and the
| total cost going through an agency I think would've been about
| the same.
| Aeolun wrote:
| Adoption is crazy expensive, and a super hard process
| compared to, you know, just popping one out yourself.
|
| I sort of understand why, but I still think it's a bit
| counterproductive.
| bushbaba wrote:
| Accept for most in the world IVF is a years salary.
| bdcravens wrote:
| The same is true of many things in the United States, like
| automobiles and Apple computers.
| scient wrote:
| Thats absolutely not true.
| Vikerchu wrote:
| Idk ive seen real expensive IVFs
| devmor wrote:
| You're right, it's not true. It's more like a decade's
| salary. Full IVF generally ranges from $10-15k USD. Median
| worldwide income is about $900 USD.
| waltbosz wrote:
| This is a curious observation which spawns so many new
| questions in my mind.
|
| What is the cost of living in the places of the world
| where $900 USD is average income of its populace.
|
| From which I would ask: in those parts of the world,
| where does and income of $900 USD put someone in terms of
| poverty or prosperity. What is their social mobility?
|
| Then I would ask: do the people living in these parts of
| the world feel the same urge to be parents as people
| living in rich countries like the US? Are the more social
| pressures in rich countries that make parenthood a
| desirable goal?
|
| Is there a correlation between a country's wealth and
| conception rate ?
| code_duck wrote:
| People in countries with very low incomes tend to have
| more children. One reason is that children can start
| helping out the family very young and be working to
| contribute by their teenage years. Another goal is to
| gain retirement security. If you have 8 children you'll
| have someone to take care of you in old age.
| smilebot wrote:
| Add another $10-15k per cycle if you want genetic
| testing.
| miroljub wrote:
| It costs that much only in the USA, not everywhere.
|
| In many parts of the world, it's either way less
| expensive, or even covered by health insurance (at least
| a few tries).
| dagw wrote:
| _It costs that much only in the USA_
|
| Costs a good $10k in Sweden and Denmark as well. Don't
| know about the rest of Europe.
| Aeolun wrote:
| Japan was $4k or so, but we had to pay only like $200 per
| attempt if it didn't succeed.
| vinay427 wrote:
| It is similarly expensive in various other countries
| where it isn't always covered, and meanwhile is also
| covered in some states in the US.
|
| https://resolve.org/learn/financial-resources-for-family-
| bui...
| prmoustache wrote:
| 10-15k is nothing compared to the million your kid will
| cost you until its 20y birthday.
| tomwojcik wrote:
| You live in a bubble.
| xyzzyz wrote:
| Regular people spend much less than a million to raise a
| child up to 20.
| prmoustache wrote:
| That's not me who did the math.
|
| It was data from Switzerland though. But still 1 million
| USD in Switzerland is still a large amount and much 50 to
| 100 times higher than IVF and the same ratio would
| probably applies in many countries.
|
| Bottom line is if you can't swallow the IVF price, you'd
| better not have kids in the first place because your kid
| will cost you much more than that every single year.
| xyzzyz wrote:
| Regular people in Switzerland don't spend as much either.
| Regular people in Switzerland will maybe barely _make_
| $1M over 20 years, so to suggest that this is how much it
| _costs_ to raise a _single_ child, even in such a wealthy
| and developed county as Switzerland, is absurd.
| prmoustache wrote:
| OK I stand corrected I found the study. Half a million
| for 2 kids, the first one representing the most of it
| (380k).
|
| Calculation involves direct costs (upwards of 200k per
| kid) + indirect costs (bigger housing, owning bigger
| cars, more items, moving closer to good schools or
| quiet/safer places, etc).
|
| Still I stand by the idea that if you can't swallow the
| IVF price you will be in a bad situation in the long
| term.
| PakG1 wrote:
| Perhaps in the US. We did ours in South Korea. I can't
| remember how much it was, but it was far less than a year's
| salary.
| mcbuilder wrote:
| And don't forget, if the IVF works, the costs of the kids
| will make that look paltry.
|
| Source: Have 3 kids
| lovecg wrote:
| People used to have kids as a source of free labor, not as
| a money sink. I wonder if it's still the case in many
| places.
| jjoonathan wrote:
| Kids went from labor source plus retirement plan to an
| expensive hobby. That's the reason for the demographic
| transition.
| Aeolun wrote:
| I mean that's probably true for the average world citizen,
| but probably not for anyone that already has the chance to
| browse HN.
| addingadimensio wrote:
| It's fine to be hesitant for IVF when you're younger you don't
| need it when you're young
| e40 wrote:
| What did it cost? My understanding is that it is not cheap.
| metalliqaz wrote:
| Around $20k out of pocket for IVF with ICSI when I did it.
| Most of that (~12k) was the drugs.
| ne0flex wrote:
| If you're in the US, it's possible it can be covered by
| insurance. My wife and I are in the process of doing IVF.
| Though it can be very expensive - the injection medications
| cost a total of $16K. Thankfully, it's covered by my health
| insurance and I had a $100 co-pay. PGTA screening is not
| covered by my insurance and to my knowledge costs about $1k.
| Other parts in the IVF process vary in cost but most is
| covered by my insurance with a $45 co-pay.
| ridgered4 wrote:
| We had some fertility issues as well and while IUI and time
| worked for the two children we have IVF was looked into. Before
| the whole thing I didn't understand why people didn't just
| adopt. But once looking into the sky high costs and uncertainty
| of adoption I understood why IVF is popular. It is expensive
| and uncertain as well, but much less so.
| PakG1 wrote:
| Adopting is hard. I've tried to convince my wife that we
| should adopt because I've always wanted to adopt anyway, but
| she's scared I'm not taking it seriously enough. She says
| with adoption, you need to emotionally commit more than you
| would with your own blood because the natural instinct isn't
| there. She's scared I can't handle the responsibility and she
| might be scared of it too. She said we can have the talk
| again after I prove I can be a good dad with our own blood
| first. She doesn't want to be the mom that loves and handles
| everything while the dad doesn't care.
| Aeolun wrote:
| I'm always surprised that they think they're the only ones
| that care. Just because it doesn't show in the same way
| doesn't mean I don't care.
|
| My wife's care consists of endlessly fuzzing over every
| little detail of their appearance when going out. Mine
| consists of ensuring he's happy and fed.
|
| Personally my issue with adoption is that I do not want to
| be in a position where I treat my own child and the adopted
| one differently. Don't know if it'd happen, but I don't
| want to try.
| IfOnlyYouKnew wrote:
| "They"?
| PakG1 wrote:
| Given I'm still trying to remind myself to regularly
| vacuum, I don't blame her for her worries about my level
| of commitment to responsibility. I took months to file
| our taxes. I'd have a bad opinion of me too. I'm really
| lucky that she loves me for some reason!
| calvinmorrison wrote:
| adopting also has about a million more hoops than just
| having kids, and this is relatively new. My mom's cousin
| has a 'brother' who they adopted cause his parents died a
| car in a neighboring house. Well, they were of the similar
| age and the kid came and lived on the farm with them. I
| don't know if theres any legal paperwork that was even
| done. Probably some stamps.
|
| now? good luck adopting without a mortgage downpayment, a
| clean history, good credit, references, yada yada
| mattlondon wrote:
| We were looking down the barrel of IVF after everything else
| didn't work but all sperm and eggs etc looked normal. Turns out
| that my wife had an immune response (so-called "natural killer
| cells") that was preventing successful pregnancy.
|
| Drugs for that were simple and _very_ mild (and cheap!) and
| within 2 months we were pregnant for the first child. For the
| second child it was just 1 month! This was all naturally
| conceived after a very long period of nothing happening.
|
| IVF seemed very invasive with potentially low success rates but
| conversely high risk of twins etc if it did work. I'd recommend
| getting the immunology investigated if people are suggesting
| IVF for you - for us it was utterly straight forward and simple
| once the diagnosis was made and the drugs prescribed. Google
| for Dr Shehata in the UK.
| wintermutestwin wrote:
| A long time ago, my spouse and I moved to Massachusetts because
| they mandated that Insurance companies must cover IVF. I got a
| job at a small startup, but just as we were getting started
| with IVF, they got acquired by a California megacorp. I thought
| I'd have to quit, but it turned out that the acquiring
| company's insurance covered IVF.
|
| Back then, IVF Drs. were measured on their success rate so they
| wanted to put in three blastocysts (fertilized eggs). With
| fears of triplets in my head, I talked my spouse down to two.
| My twins are adults now and totally awesome :~)
| jgalt212 wrote:
| It's a tricky situation. Marrying later leads to more robust
| marriages, but more difficulty conceiving.
| DevX101 wrote:
| The thesis of the book 'Countdown' is that this is largely due to
| widespread plastic and other endocrine disrupting chemicals. I
| believe this is one of the most important risks to humanity,
| after climate change, and global war. So far, I've taken some
| lifestyle changes to combat this: 1) Threw out all of my teflon
| cooking pans 2) Refuse to consume food in heated plastics 3)
| Throw out teabags (they have plastics). Use loose leaf tea 4)
| Will soon be throwing out liquid body wash and moisturizers, and
| replace with simpler oils
|
| This is an emergency, which would probably require we do a
| revolution on use commercial packaging and plastic. But I don't
| have much faith, given how entrenched this industry is. Right
| now, industry is pushing BPA-free packaging, but I strongly
| suspect BPA-free plastics have similar endocrine effects, we just
| haven't studied them long enough.
| flanbiscuit wrote:
| > Will soon be throwing out liquid body wash and moisturizers,
| and replace with simpler oils
|
| What are you planning on doing?
|
| I stopped using the Dr Bronner's liquid soap and switched to
| the their bar soap. For a while I was using the same soap for
| my hair and then I was doing a "rinse" (apple cider vinegar +
| some oils) but I got lazy and stopped. I might pick that back
| up again.
|
| https://info.drbronner.com/all-one-blog/2017/03/definitive-g...
| jupp0r wrote:
| I use Lush soaps and solid bar shampoos. The shampoos
| actually work better for my hair than liquid shampoos and
| they're so convenient to travel with!
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Olive oil works nicely as a skin softener/moisturizer, as
| long as you don't mind smelling of olives.
| monkeynotes wrote:
| Not all teabags are that "fancy" plastic-y webbing. Cheaper
| teas have traditional paper filters.
| saltcured wrote:
| Plastics are so cheap and the paper industry has spent many
| decades learning how to make different composite blends of
| paper and plastic to get different characteristics. I had a
| friend who spent time in that industry and liked to point out
| how plastics could be in most paper-like products you would
| see every day. He also emphasized how "actual" paper can be
| unhealthy due to bleaching and other processing steps that
| leave byproducts.
|
| I don't know if it's really solved anything, but I switched
| to loose leaf teas with a stainless steel "tea ball" for
| individual cups. Now I can instead wonder what metals the
| global supply chain decided to actually use in that product.
| ;-)
| dham wrote:
| Just use glass. I never understood plastic containers.
| Basically just use shit that existed 50 years ago for food.
|
| Iron pans, store in glass, butter, lard. If you spill stuff on
| a couch just live with it. Buy leather. Too many things are
| made because people are lazy. If you have kids don't have nice
| stuff, it's very easy.
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| > If you have kids don't have nice stuff, it's very easy.
|
| An unexpected upshot is that in a functional household you
| can let them play like actual children, without the cloying
| anxiety and constant shrieks of "For Gods sake Tristan and
| Tarquin, not on the Louis Vuitton !!"
| TylerE wrote:
| Glass is expensive to make (and recycle!), heavy, physically
| larger (since your container is, now, say, 0.250" thick
| instead of 0.025"), and much more likely to break during
| shipping, and presents an injury risk when broken.
| ulnarkressty wrote:
| Forget teabags, what about the bazillion microplastics that we
| inhale/ingest every day from clothing and carpeting? Especially
| nice when your coworker's idea of cleaning up their dusty PC is
| by using canned air on it indoors...
| monkeynotes wrote:
| Better check your plumbing because I hate to say it, PEX is
| everywhere and it's yet to be shown if there are long term
| effects on having plastic plumbing everywhere. My kitchen water
| tastes like plastic all the time.
| formerly_proven wrote:
| PEX is fine. Water that sat in a PEX pipe is chemically
| indistinguishable from water held in a test tube, unlike what
| happens with water in PVC piping. Another indicator of fine-
| ness is that PE and PP tubing is used extensively in chemical
| process plants where high purity is required.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| But the water delivered to your house probably ran through
| miles of PVC pipe. What's a few feet more?
|
| I just run the water for 10 seconds or so (feel for it to
| get colder) before I drink.
| moffkalast wrote:
| > miles of PVC pipe
|
| Ah god, this is gonna be a "those dumb Romans used lead
| pipes" moment for our civilization isn't it?
| p3rls wrote:
| What? Are you suggesting that most in the United States
| that most people have miles of water mains with PVC on
| the other side of the meter?
|
| Most PVC is not rated for potable water. In many
| localities (like nyc) it's a code violaton to use PVC on
| anything. I am a professional plumber.
|
| Btw, fun fact for you non-plumbers, pex as we know it was
| invented by a hardcore nazi.
| monkeynotes wrote:
| I'd like to see a source for "chemically
| indistinguishable". Here is what I've read:
| https://www.ewg.org/news-insights/news/amid-pipe-wars-
| resear...
| gniv wrote:
| I've given up making sousvide anything for the same reason.
| sakras wrote:
| I've been using a silicone Stasher bag for my sous vide
| needs, works quite well.
| UweSchmidt wrote:
| Regarding tea bags, sometimes I see plastic tea bags which are
| crazy, as they must have a weak structure/large surface and the
| hot water surely washes out a lot of plastic. I am assuming the
| normal paper tea bags I get in Germany with a metal clip should
| be plastic free though, or am I missing something?
|
| Yes we are down to discussing tea bag brands now but as you are
| saying, it's an emergency :-(
| someweirdperson wrote:
| Tea bags are a useless convenience.
|
| In bulk tea is not only significantly cheaper (not as bad as
| the tea capsule mark-up, which is in a league oo its own),
| but also waste is reduced to nothing (only the tea itself,
| which is perfectly organic).
|
| Rinsing a reusible tea holder doesn't take more time than it
| takes to dispose off the paper tied to the end separately.
| OJFord wrote:
| > Tea bags are a useless convenience.
|
| Surely an oxymoron?
|
| (I don't really drink tea fwiw; if I did I probably _would_
| be the type to get into it with loose leaves sourced from
| somewhere I believed to be better than anything available
| in bags (not even because of the plastic or whatever in
| bags).)
| javajosh wrote:
| _> Tea bags are a useless convenience._
|
| Why do people wildly overstate their case, and thereby
| weaken it? This is obviously false: tea bags, like
| disposable silverware, may be harmful but they are not
| useless!
|
| These days if you are against something then anything bad
| said about it is true, anything good said about it is false
| or questionable. This is a (bad) lawyer's attitude, a very
| easy algorithm to execute, and one that is transparent and
| punished by any judge worth their salt.
| majkinetor wrote:
| Useless! Your analysis its obviosuly fake and lame.
| DevX101 wrote:
| What consumers think of as normal "paper" tea bags release
| 11.6 billion "microplastics" and 3.1 billion "nanoplastics"
| into each cup. It's not paper.
| akiselev wrote:
| Since when did micro- and nanoplastics become an SI unit?
|
| Where do I put my feet?
| moffkalast wrote:
| On the table.
| morelisp wrote:
| That's 11603.1 whole plastics!
| moffkalast wrote:
| Waiter, there's a plastic in my tea!
| coolspot wrote:
| Underrated comment.
| propogandist wrote:
| which tea bags don't do this?
| DevX101 wrote:
| I wouldn't use tea bags at all. Use a metal loose leaf
| tea infuser and buy loose leaf tea. I use this:
|
| https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00X50NUU4
| Aachen wrote:
| The "use jquery" answer for tea bags. "How do I do X with
| tea bags?" "Don't use tea bags, use this better thing!"
| type-r wrote:
| the hilarity of suggesting use of something from Amazon
| when the discussion is about avoiding health hazards...
| twobitshifter wrote:
| Along the same lines as tea-bags, is it possible k-cups have an
| effect? The keurig machine is already plastic, so does using a
| reusable cup buy you any benefit?
| Method-X wrote:
| The reusable cup is also plastic.
| DevX101 wrote:
| k-cups get quite warm when in use so I'd avoid it for daily
| use. Try a french press with a glass container instead. I
| also threw away my Aeropress for similar reasons.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Aeropress claims they have tested for plastic leaching and
| found none.
|
| https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0601/8783/6659/files/Evol
| u...
|
| Link is from the FAQ page on aeropress.com.
|
| I can't find the reference now but at one point they
| discussed why they don't offer an aeropress in stainless
| steel or glass, and it's basically because of safety (metal
| and glass transmit heat much more than plastic).
| Additionally with glass, even pyrex, there is a risk of
| breakage.
| type-r wrote:
| shocker, company claims its own product isn't harmful
| shawnz wrote:
| > I strongly suspect BPA-free plastics have similar endocrine
| effects
|
| Based on what? BPA is the monomer which makes up polycarbonate
| plastic, and it's a simple molecule which has been known to be
| an estrogen analogue for nearly 100 years. Other kinds of
| plastics besides polycarbonate are made from much different
| kinds of monomers which have no structural similarity to BPA,
| so why should we assume that the risk carries over? The
| mechanism that makes BPA dangerous has nothing to do with the
| fact that it can be turned into a plastic.
| whalesalad wrote:
| BPA was banned, so they tweaked it into BPB, BPS, BPF, and
| BPAF, etc... it's a game of whack-a-mole. They're all
| terrible for us.
| shawnz wrote:
| Sure, but most plastics aren't made with any kind of
| bisphenol related compounds at all.
| Qem wrote:
| They are added afterwards as additives, to improve
| mechanical properties of plastics, even those that don't
| use BP(X) as feedstock for synthesis.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I have some experience in plastic molding and I'm not
| sure what you mean. They're either part of the feedstock
| or not.
| Dig1t wrote:
| This exact thing is discussed in detail in the book OP
| referenced, it's excellent BTW.
|
| The group of chemicals known as phthalates are added to a
| huge range of plastics we use at home every day and there is
| a ton of evidence suggesting that these chemicals are
| endocrine disruptors. They seem to all have very similar
| effects WRT endocrine disruption, often substituted for one
| another when one is found to be bad. This leads to the whack-
| a-mole effect described by a sibling comment.
|
| Products can be listed as "BPA free" but still have these
| endocrine disrupting chemicals in them.
| lisper wrote:
| > This is an emergency
|
| No, this is hope. Converting the entire biomass of earth into
| homo sapiens is not the goal.
| tomp wrote:
| Sperm count is falling in wild animals as well.
| sriacha wrote:
| do you have a source for that?
| tomp wrote:
| Page 1 of Google
|
| https://theconversation.com/amp/male-fertility-how-
| everyday-...
| 10g1k wrote:
| You don't need all the chemicals they sell you.
|
| I don't use synthetic dishwashing liquid, because it's completely
| unnecessary. Anything that separates water from everything else
| is not going to do good things in your digestive tract. Other
| effects... who knows?
|
| I don't drink tap water, which in my country has about twenty
| disinfectants in it. What do disinfectants do? They are poisons
| which kill micro-organisms. The idea is that they're strong
| enough to harm them but weak enough for us to handle. But are
| they? What about our gut microflora and such?
|
| I don't use synthetic chemical surface cleaners or anything else
| like that. There are natural options, DIY options, and it
| generally works out cheaper than purchasing the mass produced
| synthetic garbage.
|
| And yes, I've been tested, and have super-sperm. Kid is on the
| way too.
| type-r wrote:
| unless you have access to some spring, i don't see how drinking
| bottled water in plastic is better than not drinking tap
| moffkalast wrote:
| > Anything that separates water from everything else is not
| going to do good things in your digestive tract
|
| Like oil?
| 10g1k wrote:
| Different mechanism. Detergents are a class of chemicals
| which bind very strongly to water on one end and oils on the
| other end. This strips oils and waters off things, for
| example gut lining or microflora which require maybe water or
| oils.
| XorNot wrote:
| There is argument that the way sperm count data is collected is
| not accurate[1].
|
| In short, historical data has good reasons to assume it is not
| reliable, and there are inexplicable geographic divergences which
| seem correlated now strongly with the number of studies then any
| other factor: i.e we simply aren't using large enough or
| comparable sample sizes, and what looks like decline is
| regression towards the true mean.
|
| Of note: the decline still does not show an average below the
| levels required to be regarded as fertile, and it also does not
| show a reduction in observably fertile men (those who have
| fathered children).
|
| [1] https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2021/05/fears-over-
| fa...
| [deleted]
| raxxorraxor wrote:
| Hopefully they will never discover that this is due to excessive
| wanking.
| zug_zug wrote:
| Not sure if you're joking, but that's something they control
| for (when you last ejaculated) when measuring sperm counts
| raxxorraxor wrote:
| I was joking. Round 1 has a different consistency than round
| 5. Perhaps the test subjects aren't entirely honest...
| seydor wrote:
| i would think it trains to produce more. Woody allen was wrong?
| MonkeyMalarky wrote:
| Pornhub causing the fall of civilization and not nuclear
| proliferation or global warming? That's a new one.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| You clearly don't hang out with enough catholics &
| evangelicals.
|
| In all seriousness this is a mainstream-ish opinion in some
| religious circles.
| seydor wrote:
| Meanwhile nothing is more pro-procreation than showing
| people the most fun ways to do it
| TheLoafOfBread wrote:
| Well I would expect that when you are using something
| often, then it will go stronger like muscles. So more
| wanking -> more sperm count. But I am just guessing here.
| swader999 wrote:
| It definitely messes with your dopamine levels.
| thepasswordis wrote:
| And yet: the catholics and evangelicals seem to be having
| no trouble conceiving.
| thepasswordis wrote:
| For the people downvoting this: https://www.pewresearch.o
| rg/religion/2015/05/12/chapter-3-de...
|
| It's true. Christians are the most likely group to have
| kids. The most likely Christians are Mormons, then
| Catholics, and Evangelicals are tied for second.
|
| The group least likely to have kids are agnostics, with
| atheists being very slightly more likely.
| O__________O wrote:
| Appears unlikely that frequent masturbation affect male
| fertility:
|
| https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/male-infertil...
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| That solves the Fermi Paradox.
| ativzzz wrote:
| I mean, VR porn is already pretty nuts, I can imagine that a
| few generations of technology down the line the desire to
| explore the universe can be fully supplanted
| delecti wrote:
| The answer to the great filter being the development of
| supernormal stimuli doesn't seem too farfetched.
| propagandist wrote:
| It must be environmental.
| canadiantim wrote:
| I'm sure it's a combination of factors
| seydor wrote:
| it can't really be genetic
| twobitshifter wrote:
| Epigenetic effects are possible in formation of gonads,
| it's one of the mechanisms involved in sex differentiation.
| seydor wrote:
| Can't be passed on if there are no children
| [deleted]
| wongarsu wrote:
| Maybe with longer lifespans, people making conscious
| choices which partner to have children with, and IVF being
| an option, there just isn't that much evolutionary pressure
| on sperm counts. Something that reduces your sperm count by
| 50% but makes you 10% more attractive could absolutely be
| an evolutionary advantage in the developed world.
|
| Not that I think this is what's going on, but I think
| rejecting it outright is too hasty.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| IVF and things like caesarians & other prenatal care are
| _surely_ having an evolutionary effect. Fertility and
| ability to give healthy live birth used to be _the_ most
| fundamentally important evolutionary pressures for us
| (and basically every other species), and now we can opt
| out of them.
|
| IDK how long we'd expect it to take for most of humanity
| to become dependent on a high-tech society to reproduce,
| under those circumstances, but it'd seem really weird to
| me if that's _not_ the direction we 're going. But maybe
| that takes hundreds or thousands of years to have a
| pronounced effect, rather than tens.
| unbalancedevh wrote:
| From TFA: "But the transmission of these exposures doesn't
| stop there--the epigenetic effects of these exposures may
| be transmitted from one generation to the next, not just
| from the mother but possibly from the father too. It may be
| due to factors in the father's sperm that disrupt the
| reproductive development of male fetuses in the womb,
| Levine notes."
| seydor wrote:
| This assumes there are children
| mhitza wrote:
| My bet is on the microplastics that have been found
| everywhere, from the arctic snow[1] down to the placenta of
| unborn babies[2]. They are known to be endocrine disruptors,
| however they only got their media spotlight (as far as I am
| aware) in the last ~4 years. Thus we're far away from being
| able to fully understand their effects on the human body.
|
| Fun part is that I have some crazy (non-scietifically backed)
| theories that they are the cause of behavioral changes in
| humans which became more prominent in our society in the last
| 10-20 years. Unfortunately this is unresearched territory, as
| the only important article I came across were related to
| animals thus far [3][4]
|
| [1] https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/mi
| cro...
|
| [2] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/dec/22/micro
| pla...
|
| [3] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32629346/
|
| [4] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31673028/
| OGWhales wrote:
| I wonder how we can even determine what effects
| microplastics have on the human body when they are so
| prolific that every human on earth has them. Comparing with
| humans from the past has many challenges, so I guess the
| best we can do is comparing people that have more to those
| with less.
| wongarsu wrote:
| Has masturbation notably increased over the years?
|
| Of course the availability of pornographic material has
| increased, but previous generations seemed to do fine with
| sears catalogues so I'm not sure that is a big factor.
| sschueller wrote:
| It will probably turn out that the opposite is true.
| pmoriarty wrote:
| Great news for people like me who don't want to reproduce.
| willcipriano wrote:
| Do you intend to become elderly? Perhaps not so great news in
| 50 years when you are looking for a nursing home.
| jehb wrote:
| This comments feels a little ambiguous, and driving replies
| for two separate issues.
|
| At a societal level, is an imbalanced population pyramid a
| problem? Yes, and many countries are solving this by opening
| up immigration options.
|
| Should an _individual_ opting not to have children be
| expected to have negative consequences in old age? IMHO, no.
| willcipriano wrote:
| > opening up immigration options
|
| Unless they are getting immigrants from off world, that is
| at best a game of musical chairs. Birth rates are
| plummeting globally.
| jehb wrote:
| This is misleading. Birth rates globally are still above
| replacement level. Even if they weren't, immigration
| still provides opportunities for people to move from
| areas of higher relative birth rate to areas of lower
| relative rate, should they choose to.
| willcipriano wrote:
| Global warming alarmism is similarly misleading, the
| current climate can easily support human life.
| istjohn wrote:
| It's called climate change for a reason.
| willcipriano wrote:
| Birth rates are depicted over time for a reason.
| missedthecue wrote:
| it's not really misleading at all. Places like Vietnam,
| the Philippines, Thailand, India, Bangladesh, and
| Malaysia all had birth rates below replacement in 2021.
|
| Sure, you can still find nice big numbers in places like
| Niger in sub-saharan Africa, but even they are starting a
| sharp decline. And they are starting with a low base.
| Their entire national population is only the size of the
| greater NYC area.
| AlgorithmicTime wrote:
| notch656a wrote:
| What you're describing is tragedy of the commons. No
| negative consequences to not having children, but big
| negative disproportional cost to the parents raising them.
| With disproportionately privatized losses and socialized
| gains.
|
| People often say you shouldn't have kids for your own
| retirement. In the ultimately hypocrisy, they often mean
| kids will be for everybody's retirement (when they're
| forced to pay social security taxes as adults).
|
| The economic incentive is to let others have kids and
| shoulder disproportionately the costs, while you can free
| ride and "not have negative consequences." Immigration
| doesn't solve this problem at the system level as removing
| children from foreign tax pool into our domestic pool
| shifts benefits from one elderly person to another.
| AdrianB1 wrote:
| > Should an individual opting not to have children be
| expected to have negative consequences in old age? IMHO,
| no.
|
| The question is then who will care for these people when
| they get old? Other people's children? So other people
| should have children, put the effort to raise and educate
| them for your benefit? This is a very egotistic view.
| jehb wrote:
| I would argue that expecting your children to care for
| you is actually far more egotistic than merely expecting
| a social safety net for all people to exist.
| AdrianB1 wrote:
| I did not say that in any means, shape or form. I said
| that all people need someone to help them when they are
| old, so all people have some responsibility these
| "someone". The "someone" are children of people, so
| society needs people to have children that will become
| adults and be part of society; all people, if possible
| (medical conditions are usually the accepted exception).
| erellsworth wrote:
| Personally, I plan to die in the climate wars.
| 2-718-281-828 wrote:
| I'll rather hang myself then going to a nursery home now and
| even more so in the future. I'm living a happy life and
| looking forward to tomorrow - and yet I am dead serious about
| that. I've seen enough people in those places. Did you notice
| that one thing you learned while growing up and maturing was
| that you started to notice when the party is over and it's
| time to leave instead of hanging on until the very dire end -
| it's the same thing with life.
|
| Also neither is yourself getting children or other people
| getting some a guarantee for a dignified existence in a
| future nursery home nor is such utilitarian thinking a good
| basis for deciding on whether or not to bring someone into
| the world.
|
| Humans will eventually go the way of the Dodo - and that's
| okay. Because we are not special. Not at all.
| notch656a wrote:
| Something like 95% of suicides fail and then they'll toss
| you into a home or someplace terrible to keep you from
| doing it again.
| hungryforcodes wrote:
| So I have to suffer a lifetime of kids just for this
| vague possibility? No thanks.
| [deleted]
| throwawaydad12 wrote:
| The situation is a bit more complex than that, but in any
| case, that's a rather weak rationale for not committing
| suicide.
|
| Here is a better reason: You'll be dead quite soon in any
| case, so unless you're in agony, you may as well enjoy
| your final days here. Think of some of your favorite
| activities and pick one. Rinse and repeat.
|
| Sound shallow? Maybe, but I've spent an awful lot of time
| contemplating the question.
| notch656a wrote:
| Sorry if I did a poor job of conveying, but my comment
| was never intended to rationalize committing suicide or
| not committing suicide. It was to illustrate society
| generally doesn't respect these wishes, that these wishes
| often fail, and that ending up in an institution staffed
| by our juniors may be less of our own choice than we may
| think.
| throwawaydad12 wrote:
| Agree. Ending up in a situation where suicide was not
| possible is probably one of my greatest fears.
| cpsns wrote:
| Assisted suicide (death in friendlier terms) like we have
| in Canada is only going to become more permissive and
| other pleases will continue to adopt such laws.
|
| In the future when people have real options this is less
| likely to be an issue.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Have enough investments and fiat to not be the poor sucker
| who can't pay for help end of life as the young, productive
| cohort compresses.
| balls187 wrote:
| And hope when you age out, you keep your mental faculty
| strong enough you don't get taken advantage of.
| rayiner wrote:
| Unless you're investing in canned soup and ammo, you need
| young people working for those retirement "savings" to be
| worth anything.
|
| The modern retirement system is merely an additional layer
| of indirection over the traditional system of kids taking
| care of their elderly parents.
| est31 wrote:
| Yeah, if the number of people shrinks, so does the size
| of a market, and so do revenues of companies. If you own
| stocks, those will be worth less. If the number of people
| shrinks, so does the demand for living space, and the
| value of your apartment goes down. Etc.
| [deleted]
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Young, productive workers and consumers will exist
| somewhere globally, it's a matter of capturing some of
| that productivity as investment return. If it all goes to
| hell, sure, the rows in a database are going to mean very
| little and you're going to fallback to fuel, food, and
| firearms until the end (unlikely).
| est31 wrote:
| Not all markets are equally accessible by public
| companies as is the case with the US. Often you have a
| lot of private companies, companies owned by people close
| to the government, etc. If you own real estate it might
| suddenly be disowned and given to someone close to the
| local elites, etc. Also, in coming decades, declining
| birth rates will be a global concern, not just one of the
| developed countries plus russia (and OMG does russia have
| this problem right now).
| willcipriano wrote:
| Outcomes aren't great for old folks who go into homes
| without having someone on the outside looking out for them.
| I don't know if you've seen the recent stories but a little
| cognitive issues and you'll be signing away everything
| you've earned to the home itself or one of it's employees.
| It's quite common.
| bowsamic wrote:
| Having kids solely because you want someone to look after
| you when you're older seems like an extremely selfish
| reason to have kids
| willcipriano wrote:
| "Solely" is doing a lot of work there and making a great
| deal of assumptions.
| bowsamic wrote:
| Yeah but that was the whole point. You're telling someone
| who already doesn't want kids why they should want kids,
| but you're giving them only one reason. If they do so, it
| will only be for that reason
| saint_fiasco wrote:
| Not necessarily. Suppose that person has multiple reasons
| to want kids and multiple reasons to not want kids. They
| analyze the pros and cons and figure that the cons
| slightly outweigh the pros so they choose not to have
| children.
|
| If later they learn something unpleasant about nursing
| homes, or pension plans, or something else relevant to
| their expected quality of life at their old age, then
| that might tip the scale towards having children, even
| though it is only one of many reasons.
|
| The last reason that tipped the scales towards a decision
| is not necessarily the only one or even the most
| important.
| KptMarchewa wrote:
| Why would I care what happens when my IQ degrades to one
| below room temperature?
|
| Similarly, if I go into vegetative state I hope someone
| will use my organs for some good cause, not try to keep
| me alive by any way possible.
| onetimeusename wrote:
| There will be a lot of poor suckers. A lot of pension
| schemes and even social security in the US rely on having
| younger workers paying into it. It's a huge part of how
| people do retirement planning.
|
| If your answer is that you are not planning on counting on
| it for the future then a lot of people will ask why not
| stop paying into it and keep the money taxed for yourself?
| It is a significant tax. You CAN actually stop paying into
| it and then make yourself ineligible for payments out which
| includes spousal benefits being cancelled. You CAN
| conscientiously object, it is a provision of the SSA law.
|
| If a lot of young people saw that, they would withdraw from
| it and put the trust right now into a deficit which would
| adversely affect the people withdrawing from it right now.
|
| I think there is a non zero probability of this happening
| regardless for different, uglier political reasons but it
| doesn't make a lot of sense for people to be forced to pay
| into something with no promise of ever getting something
| back.
| swader999 wrote:
| Or just don't be afraid of getting old. We all gotta die at
| some point. It only takes a week to starve and I can handle
| that fine.
| bowsamic wrote:
| I'll just make enough money to pay for a good nursing home
| AdrianB1 wrote:
| Your money will have to be worth something and nursing
| homes to still exist in a world without children. Imagine
| everyone stops having children tomorrow and make a point
| for that case, then accept some will have a few kids - that
| is an improvement but is that enough?
| compiskey wrote:
| Got you, fam: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-59577162
| eloff wrote:
| Having kids isn't likely to change that
| highstep wrote:
| a child is a ridiculously expensive, time consuming, and
| undependable insurance policy
| __alexs wrote:
| No problem. GPT-42 powered humanoid Tesla robots will be
| looking after us by then. Probably better conversationalists
| than your kids anyway /s
| bmacho wrote:
| this but unironically
| [deleted]
| dncornholio wrote:
| All power to you not wanting to reproduce, why shouldn't other
| people reproduce? You don't like people?
| highwaylights wrote:
| I'm hoping this was said in jest but this is definitely _not_
| great news for you, and will only make the demographic cliff
| even steeper.
|
| Assuming you at some point want to be alive when no longer
| young this is something to be alarmed by, as there simply
| aren't going to be enough work-capable people around to keep
| the machinery of society functioning while still supporting
| those who have aged-out of the working aged population, unless
| your plan is to Logan's Run anyone that shows signs of
| senescence (which probably isn't anyone's idea of a good time).
| godshatter wrote:
| The machinery of society will presumably evolve to match the
| number of work-capable people. Automation will likely
| increase, efficiencies will be found, some services will be
| cut.
|
| From my perspective (I'm in my 50s) things have been
| spiraling out of control for a while now. Do we really need a
| couple of dozen flavors of Mountain Dew? Must I be inundated
| with advertisements for crap I'll never buy even when going
| to extraordinary lengths to minimize them? Do we all need a
| three bedroom house with a three car garage? Do I really need
| a 200 game backlog on steam?
| highwaylights wrote:
| Are three car garages common?
|
| To be fair, and I've said this elsewhere, I think it's
| inevitable that we'll see consistent declines in real
| estate prices over the next five decades anyway - solely
| because of the steady tide of newly-vacant houses coming to
| market due to the collapsing replacement rate - so I doubt
| the constant construction of new and bigger houses can
| continue anyway.
| godshatter wrote:
| I live in a semi-rural area. Three car garages were
| always seen as the over-the-top status symbol when
| building a new house, at least back in the day. This is
| probably a local thing.
| tenebrisalietum wrote:
| The machinery of many societies, including the most powerful
| ones, is one where an owning class keeps most things for
| themselves, yet expects the non-owning class to want to
| contribute children to it and pay for it themselves. No
| thanks. If the owning class cares so much it can start doing
| things like making having a family much less economically
| stressful.
| kahrl wrote:
| Don't cut yourself on that edge.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| Not really, vasectomies are a 15-minute out-patient procedure
| these days. No one who doesn't want kids should be relying on
| this.
| themagician wrote:
| Whenever I read about things like decreasing sperm counts or
| increases in cancer I always think of the same phrase,
| "Everything is chemicals." It just really doesn't surprise me
| knowing how little evaluation is done on chemicals and materials
| throughout the supply chain.
|
| I believe the period from 1900 to around 2100 will be looked at
| as this horrible era where we filled our own ecosystem with an
| almost unimaginable amount of "toxic" chemicals.
|
| Truth is, particularly the US, the only thing we really test
| consumer products for is lead and mercury. These are the two
| things we test basically everything for. Other than that it's
| pretty much don't ask don't tell (and don't test), unless there
| is a specific piece of legislation that forces such a test. It's
| starting to change. But the US model is basically, "Do whatever
| you want. We'll let liability shape policy." So you create a
| product, put it out and have it do unimaginable damage, then pay
| for the health and environmental damage you did, and then create
| legislation around what others should do going forward.
|
| I get the economic reasons for this. But I think we went too far,
| too fast, and too hard.
| bigbillheck wrote:
| > pay for the health and environmental damage you did,
|
| Or do some trickery with shell companies, like Johnson&Johnson
| did, and not have to pay a dime.
| lemming wrote:
| _So you create a product, put it out and have it do
| unimaginable damage, then pay for the health and environmental
| damage you did_
|
| Or not. How often have companies actually had to pay for
| anything like the actual cost of the damage they have caused to
| the environment? Are there any cases when they have had to?
| They sometimes have to compensate a few of the humans involved,
| but never anything more general than that, and usually nothing
| approaching the real cost to society or the environment.
| themagician wrote:
| Oh, I know. Compensation is the best case scenario. Much more
| likely is that the entity ultimately responsible doesn't even
| exist by the time the issue is discovered.
|
| I don't know what the answer is here either. The EU is
| getting much more aggressive about this, but it's already
| getting to the point that to bring a new product to market
| strictly within the law essentially costs infinite dollars.
|
| Aviation still uses leaded fuel and we KNOW how bad it is.
| But the economic consequence of fully eliminating it is still
| too great. Literally the one chemical that we know with
| certainty that there is no safe level of exposure to, is
| still getting distributed through the air all day every day.
|
| It's funny to me the way Prop65 turned out in some ways. When
| people were told just how bad absolutely everything is,
| people actually care less. And now the same thing is
| happening across the EU in a broad range of categories.
| Everything has at least 3 or 4 warnings on it. Most people
| just ignore them completely or look for a product with no
| warnings--which is probably just lying.
| autoexec wrote:
| > Truth is, particularly the US, the only thing we really test
| consumer products for is lead and mercury.
|
| We don't even do that very well, for example see all the heavy
| metals that have been allowed (and are still allowed) in baby
| food.
| moistofreason wrote:
| This is a pretty fascinating interview about a theory of why it's
| happening:
| https://open.spotify.com/episode/6pLW2tMx4Kw5qaeAcxj0Lj
| symlinkk wrote:
| No, you can't reproduce or buy a house or find a wife or eat
| nutritious food. But you can get AirPods and Taco Bell delivered
| to your doorstep in a few hours! Isn't modern society amazing?
| All of the necessities are impossible, all of the optional things
| are easy!
| acco102 wrote:
| Watch Jesse Ventura - Bilderberg group (42m 54s). at about 31
| minutes of the video there is the best info
|
| https://www.mojevideo.sk/video/1775c/jesse_ventura_bilderber...
|
| about 91% people will be sterile in 2030.
| [deleted]
| matthewdgreen wrote:
| Article without annoying pay popup: https://archive.ph/AfzEs
| [deleted]
| simonswords82 wrote:
| Is this not a net positive thing given that the world just hit
| 8bn people and is clearly overpopulated?
| gabablocks wrote:
| ok scrooge
| moistofreason wrote:
| Given trends in birth rate and fertility, we are much more
| likely to have an under-population / geriatric population
| problem than an overpopulation problem.
| PartiallyTyped wrote:
| bowsamic wrote:
| You mean, reality itself? Does the next moment in time consent
| to the current one? I don't think we should annihilate
| ourselves because you can't reconcile it with your clinging to
| the idea of consent
| PartiallyTyped wrote:
| I referred to the pyramid scheme that we have designed, where
| people have children and said children work to fund the
| retirement and pension of old people.
|
| Old people could just accept their death, and pass away
| peacefully instead of burdening the society with their
| existence while actively causing harm to younger generations
| with votes on matters whose consequences they will not
| experience.
| Analog24 wrote:
| What system would that be? This seems like pure speculation to
| me so could you elaborate a bit more?
| PartiallyTyped wrote:
| Personally I am very fond of voluntary human extinction.
|
| If we give up on withering away, and instead learn to accept
| death with some dignity instead of becoming a parasite to our
| offspring, euthanasia is a good way to go.
|
| The fact that the older, non productive population will be
| more than the productive population in the not so distant
| future suggests that we need to rethink the way we go about
| doing things.
|
| If life expectancy moves past 100, and people retire at
| 60-65, society will need to feed and take care of people for
| 35 or so years, that is far far more than the time and money
| it invests on its children, for a much larger segment of the
| population, which suggests that the old exploit the young.
| [deleted]
| bowsamic wrote:
| It just sounds like straightforward anti-
| natalism/extinctionism to me. My wife has a similar mindset
| Analog24 wrote:
| Yes you're right, I completely misinterpreted their comment
| when I read it this morning.
| ghiculescu wrote:
| biohax2015 wrote:
| What kind of weird-ass response is this?
| PartiallyTyped wrote:
| Already have.
|
| As a young adult, I am asked to reconcile paying and working
| for old people, most of whom despise my very existence
| because I am not cis-het, people who repeatedly called for my
| death, people who go on twitter tirades about how LGBT people
| shouldn't exist and in the process making a their base of
| borderline functioning adults more rabid, my taxes and work
| pay so that said rabid animals have healthcare while they
| vote to deny mine.
|
| I have to fund the pension of people who tried to
| indoctrinate me into their religion by instilling fear into a
| younger me, telling me that I will go to hell every single
| day for being a non believer, or for being different.
|
| With all due respect, humanity is a steaming pile of garbage.
| shrimp_emoji wrote:
| > _I have to fund the pension of people who tried to
| indoctrinate me into their religion by instilling fear into
| a younger me, telling me that I will go to hell every
| single day for being a non believer, or for being
| different._
|
| And remember when they said we can't listen to cool music
| like https://youtu.be/VVzod3oTyhk
|
| Never forget who ur enemies are `3'
| aaomidi wrote:
| Why not?
| bvhvhfcgxfdf wrote:
| I wonder how much of it has to do with COVID. It's been well
| known even asymptotic COVID cases can harm mens' reproductive
| health.
| xienze wrote:
| This has been happening for decades.
| Arete314159 wrote:
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35778273/
| AdrianB1 wrote:
| Most probably nothing to with Covid as the measurements started
| 40 years ago and the decrease was present all these years.
| Knufen wrote:
| I did my Master Degree in Organic Chemistry where we tried to
| develop a male contraceptive pill. I spend a lot of time studying
| sperm so here is a short list of thing to avoid regarding sperm
| quality (not ranked):
|
| 1. Eating and drinking from plastics (This includes aluminum cans
| which are plastic lined) [a]
|
| 2. Heating food in ANY type of plastic [a]
|
| 3. Caffein intake [b]
|
| 4. Sugar intake [c]
|
| 5. NOT exercising regularly [d]
|
| 6. Alcohol [e]
|
| 7. Age [f]
|
| 8. Stress [g]
|
| 9. Soy products or other natural products containing
| phytoestrogens [h]
|
| I edited the comment to add point 8 and 9.
|
| Funnily enough these goes for both genders regarding fertility.
| If you are considering having a child, it takes approximately 7
| months for sperm to fully develop so better to change lifestyle
| sooner rather than later.
|
| a. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3222987 b.
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5482951/ c.
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35606632/ d.
| https://rep.bioscientifica.com/view/journals/rep/153/2/157.x...
| e. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28029592/ f.
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3253726/ g.
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6260894/ h.
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18650557/
| aidenn0 wrote:
| > Funnily enough these goes for both genders
|
| So eating and drinking from plastics lowers sperm quality in
| women too?
| Knufen wrote:
| No, but it does affect fertility, as well as various cancers.
| Breast cancer:
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7286136/,
| cervical cancer:
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4801991/ and
| fertility:
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5479690/
| throw0101a wrote:
| > _1. Eating and drinking from plastics (This includes aluminum
| cans which are plastic lined) [a]_
|
| So drinking containers should generally be ceramic, glass, or
| stainless steel?
| yamtaddle wrote:
| I'd want to know that drinks aren't full of that stuff
| regardless of the end-user container material, before
| worrying about it. They're surely exposed to tons of plastics
| in the manufacturing process, including at times when various
| components are heated.
|
| Even water supplies in a house will typically have been in
| contact with plastics--at the treatment plant, in the house
| for any modern house (they're pretty much all PEX now, since
| it's stupid-easy and fast to install, which means it's very
| cheap), in the hot water heater if they're any hot water
| mixed in (ever start with a hot tap for water you're gonna
| boil?), if you've got a filter system that's almost certainly
| full of plastic, and so on.
|
| You'd also have to avoid canned goods of all kinds, not just
| bottled/canned drinks. Store-bought canned foods have plastic
| liners, which all but completely solved problems with canned-
| good spoilage that we used to have, but does mean ~all canned
| goods are sitting in plastic, not metal, effectively. Glass-
| canned might be better but are usually more expensive and
| there's still plastic on the inside of the lids (how much
| that matters, I do not know--I'd expect very little, but
| sometimes these things are surprising, for all I know those
| inside-the-lids bits use exceptionally awful plastic or
| something).
| agentwiggles wrote:
| > ever start with a hot tap for water you're gonna boil?
|
| I've been told I shouldn't do this, so I don't, but I
| always feel like a rube waiting for a big pot of pasta
| water to boil from cold when I know I could have just used
| my giant tank of heated water and save 10 minutes of
| waiting...
| sitharus wrote:
| That's due to old-fashioned plumbing. Wayyy back in the
| day when water networks were fairly new they often
| couldn't provide the water pressure we have now,
| especially in hilly areas. It was fine for cold water,
| but not enough to pressurise a hot water tank.
|
| The solution was a header tank in the attic. This stored
| water from the supply and fed it down to the hot water
| cylinder, providing some pressure.
|
| The problem is the header tanks weren't a sealed system
| so animals could make their way in. In particular when
| using rodent control poison as this makes them seek
| water. Generally it'd be noticed pretty quickly, but not
| immediately.
|
| So the hot water was generally safe for washing but
| shouldn't be used for drinking or cooking.
|
| With modern closed systems (from the 70s onwards really)
| this isn't an issue.
| coolspot wrote:
| Where I am from we are having centrally-heated water, so
| we were told that hot tap water has anti-scaling
| chemicals unlike cold tap water which has only excessive
| chlorine.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| Yeah, I don't either, but I'd be surprised if _most_
| people don 't use the hot tap for stovetop-bound water.
| anikom15 wrote:
| There's always a chance that there's a dead animal in
| your water heater
| gambiting wrote:
| I mean.....I don't know about elsewhere, but here in UK
| you just have a combi boiler, there's no storage.
| bmicraft wrote:
| No, my water runs through a heat exchanger
| yamtaddle wrote:
| I'm torn between wanting more information, and preferring
| to live in blissful ignorance.
| gambiting wrote:
| In old houses if you had a hot water storage tank in the
| attic it was usually just covered with styrofoam or a
| metal or wooden slab, it wasn't uncommon for an
| occasional insect or yes, a small rodent to fall in and
| die in there. It's one of the reasons why most houses in
| the UK had separate cold and hot water taps - cold water
| was considered safe to drink, hot not so much.
|
| Nowadays if you have a hot water cylinder it's impossible
| for anything to get in there(although there is still a
| chance of bacteria growing inside the tank, but any
| modern cylinder will periodically heat itself to very
| high temperature to kill any pathogens)
| myshpa wrote:
| I think it's because of the bacteria living in hot water,
| and some toxins are resistant to boiling.
| lm28469 wrote:
| > ever start with a hot tap for water you're gonna boil?
|
| Depending on your system this might have no impact, my hot
| and cold water come from the same place and the hot water
| is heated 1m away from my sink by an electrical heater
| mauvehaus wrote:
| Or titanium[0]. Neat fact about anodizing titanium: the
| colors are the result of the thickness of the resulting oxide
| layer and how it refracts different wavelengths of light[1].
|
| [0] https://www.snowpeak.com/collections/drinkware/products/t
| ita... There are many. This is my favorite.
|
| [1] https://chemistrytalk.org/titanium-anodizing/
| Knufen wrote:
| Generally yes. Beware of drinking bottles made from stainless
| steel. A lot of them are lined with plastic to avoid the
| metallic taste.
| mc32 wrote:
| Or leather water bottles as well.
| floren wrote:
| Do you know of any that don't have a liner of some sort?
| I'd be interested in trying one but wouldn't know where to
| get one.
| mc32 wrote:
| I think Viking Dragon makes some handmade ones. Being
| handmade they are not cheap, but I wouldn't call them too
| expensive either.
| irusensei wrote:
| > here is a short list of thing to avoid
|
| > 7. Age [f]
|
| wait wat
| agilob wrote:
| Find a younger partner?
| nzealand wrote:
| Age is also best avoided as it is the number one cause of
| bodily deterioration, disease and death.
| mauvehaus wrote:
| Perhaps, but as death almost certainly assures a sperm
| count of zero (and some weird looks if you try collecting a
| sample), aging is probably preferable if you're trying to
| reproduce.
| moffkalast wrote:
| Dammit, I wish I knew that _before_ I started aging!
| simonsarris wrote:
| "Avoid waiting (delaying) key life things you know you want"
| is actually great advice that even very smart people seem to
| fail to consider.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Yes. In terms of best outcomes, you should have kids in
| your early 20s. Gametes are at their best, mother's body is
| young but fully developed and has the best chance at
| carrying the pregnancy to term without complications.
|
| Financially, or in terms of career and other life goals,
| are other matters.
| majkinetor wrote:
| Technically, you can easily avoid age :)
| irusensei wrote:
| Oh that went dark really fast lol
| citizenpaul wrote:
| >it takes approximately 7 months for sperm to fully develop
|
| Can you explain this more? I was under the impression it took
| something like 60days for sperm to generate in the body.
| mclightning wrote:
| agilob wrote:
| Let's not forget how many people were born thanks to alcohol
| moffkalast wrote:
| Alcohol now working overtime to somewhat re-address the
| balance.
| concinds wrote:
| "Sugar" doesn' seem to include fruits, thankfully.
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29266782/
| mikenew wrote:
| From what I understand, there is somewhat of a threshold in
| terms of how much fructose can be digested in your gut vs
| requiring your liver to get involved. It depends on a lot of
| factors (body size obviously, your overall calorie intake,
| some genetic factors, etc), but in general of you're only
| consuming a few grams of fructose and it's buffered by fiber,
| you're probably not exceeding that threshold. Fruit fits that
| bill, unless you're being weird and consuming a whole lot of
| sugary fruit.
|
| There's a very good interview on the topic here:
| https://youtu.be/V02z9mqTWzg
| adrian_b wrote:
| There is no real difference between eating food to which
| refined sugar has been added and eating sweet fruits. The
| sugar is not bound to anything and it is released in the
| fruit juice when the fruit is chewed, so it is not digested
| more slowly than when eating a sweetened cake with the same
| proportion of sugar (but the cakes are frequently made much
| sweeter than the fresh fruits).
|
| The great danger that has been created by the availability of
| cheap refined sugar and similar sweeteners, like HFCS, is
| that it has become extremely easy to create food that has an
| unnaturally high concentration of sugar or fructose and that
| it has become extremely easy to eat an excessive amount of
| sugar per day.
|
| Most cultivated fruits contain around 10% sugar, while a few
| are sweeter than that, with up to around 16% sugar, like
| grapes, fresh figs or fresh dates.
|
| When eating only fresh fruits or defrozen fruits, it is
| unlikely to eat too much sugar, but it is still possible.
|
| It is recommended that the daily intake of sugar should not
| exceed around 50 g (i.e. around 25 g fructose).
|
| That corresponds to around 300 g of grapes, or around 500 g
| of apples or pears or blueberries (or most other fruits), so
| eating amounts less or equal with these every day should be
| safe.
|
| On the other hand, a single chocolate might contain over 60 g
| of sugar. Most industrially-made food, including juices or
| yogurts or breakfast cereals, contains excessive amounts of
| sugar, so many people eat daily 100 to 200 g of sugar, or
| even more, without being aware of this.
|
| When eating dried fruits or honey, it is also possible to eat
| too much sugar without a lot of effort, e.g. around 80 g of
| most dried fruits is enough to provide the maximum
| recommended daily intake of sugar.
| majkinetor wrote:
| Yeah, right... Totally believable.
| sc90 wrote:
| In an episode of Succession, Logan was drinking a smoothie that
| contained Maca Root, Almonds, and Walnuts apparently to boost
| his Sperm count/chances of having a kid according to Willa.
| Your list is more of "Dont's". Are there "Dos", based on diet
| or certain foods that increase the count significantly?
| ipdashc wrote:
| I think I'm missing something. On the Results in study [b],
| they say
|
| > Semen parameters did not seem affected by caffeine intake, at
| least caffeine from coffee, tea and cocoa drinks, in most
| studies. Conversely, other contributions suggested a negative
| effect of cola-containing beverages and caffeine-containing
| soft drinks on semen volume, count and concentration.
|
| If tea and coffee don't cause an effect, but cola and soft
| drinks do, doesn't that imply it's sugar, not caffeine?
| ljf wrote:
| Or drinks stored in plastic bottles or plastic lined cans? Vs
| tea/coffee brewed and served in metal/ceramic vessels?
| Knufen wrote:
| There is an ongoing discussion on the effect of caffein on
| sperm quality. There are articles which describes a possible
| route for DNA damage to the sperm from caffein
| https://www.cureus.com/articles/109365-effect-of-stress-
| and-.... From personal (lab) experience there is a clear
| difference to the smell of sperm from a coffee to a non
| coffee drinker, so it ends up there somehow. Whether it truly
| has an effect is still being discussed.
| asdff wrote:
| What about pineapples?
| Tagbert wrote:
| Caffeine has no smell so what you are detecting is some
| other component or effect on the semen taste. Many things
| can affect the taste of semen.
| calmdownpeople wrote:
| He said smell not taste! At least I hope he wasn't
| tasting the lab samples.
| fnordpiglet wrote:
| Just the semen.
| e12e wrote:
| He didn't specify difference between de-caf coffee vs
| regular - only coffee vs non-coffee - so might be
| something other than caffeine that effects smell?
| et-al wrote:
| Could be correlated to issue 1 with plastic containers. In
| the US, soda generally comes in aluminum cans or 2L plastic
| bottles, whereas coffee and tea aren't.
|
| Anyways, I still think sedentary lifestyles and stress play a
| larger role than plastics, but those are harder to isolate
| and control for researchers.
| gabea wrote:
| Aluminum soda cans are actually lined with plastic. So
| either way you are going to be consuming soda from plastic.
|
| See this link ->
| https://interestingengineering.com/science/new-viral-
| video-r...
|
| And this one about BPA which is quite cringeworthy from
| Coca-Cola -> https://www.coca-cola.ca/faqs/coca-cola-faqs-
| health/do-coca-...
| pdpi wrote:
| Well, the two sentences following your quote read:
|
| > 2. As regards sperm DNA defects, caffeine intake seemed
| associated with aneuploidy and DNA breaks, but not with other
| markers of DNA damage > 3. Finally, male coffee drinking was
| associated to prolonged time to pregnancy in some, but not
| all, studies.
|
| And then goes on to conclude:
|
| > The literature suggests that caffeine intake, possibly
| through sperm DNA damage, may negatively affect male
| reproductive function.
|
| The whole abstract points at weak/inconclusive results, but
| we're definitely talking about caffeine here, not sugar.
| thedorkknight wrote:
| >short list of thing to avoid
|
| >7. Age
|
| I find this to be the hardest one to avoid!
| addingadimensio wrote:
| Careful -- saying that plastic is turning the frogs gay is a
| dangerous right wing conspiracy theory
| Knufen wrote:
| Though it is a funny Alex Jones quote there might actually be
| some meat to it.
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC122794/
| kccoder wrote:
| Is lower sperm count correlated with a change in sexual
| orientation?
| creaturemachine wrote:
| I thought that was the goblins' doing.
| asguy wrote:
| The Alex Jones motto: Even a stopped clock is right twice a
| day.
| MarcoZavala wrote:
| grammers wrote:
| This more or less reads like any health instruction (except for
| the soy products). Would you have a quantity as to how one can
| change plastic intake by following these recommendations? How
| strict does one need to be? - I mean basically everything you
| buy is wrapped in plastic...
| siglesias wrote:
| I cannot recommend highly enough having a set of glass
| bottles[1] at home. Fill them at the tap (or wherever),
| refrigerate them, take them to the gym, in the car, serve to
| guests. Point is to have many, keep a rotation going. Has
| greatly reduced reliance on plastic.
|
| 1) https://amzn.to/3H2YadV
| Bud wrote:
| zhynn wrote:
| You can often buy milk at a coop in a glass bottle which can
| then be reused. Most of our beverage consumption is out of
| re-used milk bottles. :)
| bluGill wrote:
| In my state it is illegal to use a glass milk bottle for
| anything other than milk from the dairy that the bottle is
| from. The law is from many years ago, and so there are a
| lot old bottles from now-defunct dairies that legally
| cannot be used even though everyone does.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Gyms often ban glass bottles because of the hazard they
| create when dropped/shattered.
|
| I personally use a hard (i.e. not squeezable) plastic bottle,
| that I fill with cold/cool water just before use. As long as
| the water has not been sitting in the bottle for days or in
| the sun or in a hot car, etc. I don't think there is enough
| potential chemical leeching to worry about.
| Conscat wrote:
| I'm not sure you have any credibility considering point 9.
| dj_mc_merlin wrote:
| I might as well stop using condoms.
| themagician wrote:
| Switch to PS5 + Mountain Dew. 30 minutes before sex,
| microwave a cookie in tupperware and drink a beer. For added
| protection, download the critically acclaimed MMORPG Final
| Fantasy XIV. With an expanded free trial which you can play
| through the entirety of A Realm Reborn and the award winning
| Heavensward expansion up to level 60 for free with no
| restrictions on playtime.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| Can't get a PS5. Does a Nintendo switch also do the job?
| themagician wrote:
| Unfortunately, the Switch is only about 90% effective in
| preventing unwanted pregnancy. PS5 is 98%.
| ghostbrainalpha wrote:
| I found the Switch to be highly effective as preventing
| pregnancy if you keep it in handheld mode and bring it to
| bed with you.
|
| When partner attempts romantic activity, tell them you
| need 5 more minutes of Pokemon and the problem is solved
| completely.
| themagician wrote:
| Ah, the famous "pull out" method. Pull out the Switch
| right as you get into bed.
| danuker wrote:
| I suppose it's a good idea, if you're trying to conceive :)
| glitchc wrote:
| He's become.. Inconceivable.
| moffkalast wrote:
| You keep using that word, I think it means what we think
| it means.
| colordrops wrote:
| With all of these it's a matter of quantity. For instance,
| bullet point 9 about soy makes me question this list. It turns
| out that phytoestrogens are much less potent than real
| estrogen, and the only people that were found to have
| measurable effects from soy was through a study of older men
| that ate massive amounts of soy every day in Japan. There is
| real estrogen in cow's milk, which would have a much stronger
| effect than soy, yet no one speaks about this. Hops in beer
| also has more phytoestrogens than soy.
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| Yes, the data around soy is incredibly underwhelming. A plant
| like hops does contain more, and more potent, phytoestrogens
| which many people consume more often than they consume soy.
| As you mention, milk contains mammalian estrogen which
| research indicates has notable impact on women's health in
| particular (earlier onset of puberty, higher breast and
| ovarian cancer risk, etc).
|
| Soy seems to fall well within the parameters of "this is
| fine", but people readily take any example of it effecting
| our physiology as evidence of it being harmful. In reality,
| the evidence of it promoting health overall is extensive and
| strong.
|
| It could be a component of a plant-based diet for example,
| which is shown to lead to lower BMI (great for sperm and
| overall health outcomes). It may reduce sperm concentration
| to a small degree in large volumes, but the chances are good
| (statistically speaking) that swapping out something worse in
| your diet for soy would be a net positive.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Anecdotally I know someone that had their ovaries removed as
| a child and did not know because their high soy diet provided
| enough estrogen that they had regular menstruation
| amelius wrote:
| Does estrogen in food even enter the blood?
| colordrops wrote:
| It's sold in pill form so I assume so?
| amelius wrote:
| Lookup drug delivery systems. Getting something reliably
| in the blood stream is not trivial.
| ruined wrote:
| the pills are designed to be taken sublingually, not
| swallowed. first pass metabolism destroys most of it.
| lilyball wrote:
| They're actually not, they're prescribed orally, a lot of
| people take them sublingually anyway because it's more
| effective.
| teg4n_ wrote:
| Sure some gets through when ingested, however you
| typically have the pill dissolve under your tongue for
| significantly better absorption.
| sitharus wrote:
| It does, but like everything absorbed through the digestive
| system it gets extensive first-pass metabolism through the
| liver before entering the rest of the circulatory system.
|
| Oral estrogen comes in 2mg tablets, but this results a few
| in ug of estrogen circulating. Estrogen also comes in
| transdermal patches where one 100ug patch will last three
| days for approximately the same dose as 4mg of oral
| ostrogen daily.
| myshpa wrote:
| "Estrogens are also contained in meat and eggs, but the
| major sources are milk and dairy products. By drinking a
| glass of milk, a child's intake of estradiol is 4000 times
| the intake of xenoestrogens, in terms of hormone activity.
| See, modern genetically-improved dairy cows can lactate
| throughout their pregnancy; the problem is that that's when
| the estrogen levels can jump as much as 30-fold.
|
| Though cheese intake has been associated with lower sperm
| concentration, dairy food intake has also been associated
| with abnormal sperm shape and movement, so this suggests
| that dairy intake may be implicated in direct testicular
| damage, and not just a potential suppression of sperm
| production due to the estrogen."
|
| https://nutritionfacts.org/video/dairy-estrogen-and-male-
| fer...
|
| "Estrogen hormones can be thousands of times more
| estrogenic than typical endocrine-disrupting chemicals.
| Dietary exposure to natural sex steroids (in meat, dairy,
| and eggs) is "therefore highly relevant in the discussion
| of the impact of estrogens on human development and
| health." And chicken estrogen is identical to human
| estrogen--they're the same molecule."
|
| https://nutritionfacts.org/2016/09/13/estrogen-animal-
| produc...
|
| "Foods of animal origin in general naturally contain
| hormones, but cow's milk may be of particular concern. The
| hormones naturally found in even organic cow's milk may be
| playing a role in the studies that found a relationship
| between milk and dairy products with human illnesses, such
| as teenagers' acne; prostate, breast, ovarian, and uterine
| cancers, many chronic diseases that are common in Western
| societies, as well as male reproductive disorders. Milk
| consumption has even been associated with an increased risk
| of early puberty in girls, and endometrial cancer in
| postmenopausal women, but hormonal levels in food could be
| particularly dangerous in the case of vulnerable
| populations, such as young children or pregnant women. "
|
| "Pregnant cows excrete significantly higher levels of sex
| steroids into their milk than non-pregnant cows. The
| subsequent consumption of such dairy products may mean an
| unnecessary risk, but one that could be easily avoided. But
| it's not just dairy. Although dairy products are an
| important source of hormones, other products of animal
| origin must be considered as well.
|
| All edible tissues of animal origin contain estrogen. This
| may explain why, in a study of over a thousand women eating
| plant-based diets, vegan women have a twinning rate that is
| one fifth that of vegetarians and omnivores."
|
| https://nutritionfacts.org/video/why-do-vegan-women-
| have-5x-...
| [deleted]
| 10g1k wrote:
| Agree 100%. I don't eat foods with added processed sugars. I
| treat sugar like a spice, just throw a pinch in with a few
| recipes. Sugar is in just about everything in the supermarkets,
| and is screwing up the entire population.
| irrational wrote:
| Growing up we never microwaved food in tupperware, but we do it
| daily now. None of me or my siblings (8 of us) had any sort of
| mental issues (and it wasn't a matter of not being diagnosed),
| but all of our children have so many mental issues (depression,
| anxiety, pulling hair out, ADHD, etc.) that we have asked each
| other if it could possibly be something in the environment -
| even though all of us live in different states/cities. Maybe we
| all reheat food in tuperware and eat/drink from plastics.
| rafaelero wrote:
| What a list like this misses is some sense of proportionality.
| We don't need to stress over everything that causes
| fluctuations on sperm count. The science is not there yet, but
| personally I am going to bet >50% of the reason for decreased
| sperms count is because of high protein diets (which correlate
| to lower testosterone) and high BMI.
| danuker wrote:
| Amazing! Thanks for the well-researched info. I did not know
| aluminum cans were lined. I thought the oxide layer is stable
| enough.
| moffkalast wrote:
| I think they just spray them with a thin layer of epoxy,
| otherwise certain drinks get a metallic taste?
| bluGill wrote:
| The acid in carbonation will eat the oxide layer, so soft
| drink cans get a thin plastic lining. Alcohol cans often are
| not lined.
| commandlinefan wrote:
| > list of thing to avoid > ... > 7. Age
|
| Well, I'm trying my best...
| TurkishPoptart wrote:
| >1. Eating and drinking from plastics (This includes aluminum
| cans which are plastic lined) [a]
|
| How do we avoid this? So no Costco plastic water bottles, ever.
| lr4444lr wrote:
| Comments like this from commenters like this are why I love HN.
|
| Does BPA-free plastic improve anything? What about containers
| of non-prepared food? I can see not eating directly from any,
| but I think it's pretty hard in the developed world to rid
| ourselves of plastics entirely in the storage of foodstuffs.
|
| Also, do we know whether the changes in sperm quality you
| mention affect congenital childhood maladies? (I realize this
| is probably beyond your field somewhat.)
| lm28469 wrote:
| > What about containers of non-prepared food?
|
| Wait until you learn about ink contamination from food nets
| and cardboard boxes.
| Scaevolus wrote:
| BPA is merely one of _many_ endocrine disrupting chemicals
| found in plastics. Oftentimes BPA is replaced by BPS or BPF
| to get that coveted "BPA-free!" label, ignoring the fact
| that the replacements are JUST AS BAD^1. It's a minefield.
|
| Silicone tends to not have endocrine disruptors because it
| doesn't need plasticizers.
|
| [1]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4492270/
| [deleted]
| Knufen wrote:
| All plastics are endocrine disruptors [a], though the an easy
| filter is softer = worse. If anything food related is in
| contact with plastic there will be plastic in the food. The
| pH and temperature of the food have a big impact on plastic
| leaching.
|
| And sperm quality mostly affect fertility. The egg and the
| body if the woman is incredibly effective at selecting
| quality sperm and rejecting bad sperm. There are multiple
| guidance systems for sperm which selects for good quality
| [b].
|
| a. https://www.niehs.nih.gov/health/topics/agents/endocrine/i
| nd... b. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sperm_guidance
| fnordpiglet wrote:
| Plastic is generally defined by its mechanical and thermal
| properties and a dominance of polymers. There's are lots
| and lots of different chemicals used as plastics today and
| they have wildly different chemical properties. It seems
| incredible to state that "all plastics" are endocrine
| disruptors. Many plastics are essentially chemically inert
| in a biological sense. In some ways DNA itself can be seen
| as a plastic being a biopolymer if it were handled properly
| and in enough quantity. As an uneducated layman my
| intuition, and the links you provide, is that the additives
| and monomers added to plastic to modulate their mechanical
| and chemical behaviors are most likely to be the chemically
| reactive part that can be disruptive to our biology. I
| didn't find a reference to a single plastic in your
| references. This applies to the leaching comment as well -
| I suspect you mean ph and temp increase the leaching of the
| additives from the plastic.
|
| Am I right?
| a1369209993 wrote:
| > In some ways DNA itself can be seen as a plastic being
| a biopolymer if it were handled properly and in enough
| quantity.
|
| To be fair, DNA _absolutely_ disrupts all kinds of
| biological processes - that 's why viruses do anything,
| for example. And random nonsense DNA that you'd see if
| someone was using it as a plastic would probably uncover
| new and exciting failure modes that existing biological
| systems haven't had to deal with before because nothing
| natural produces pure DNA in absurd enough quantities to
| make plastic bottles out of.
| tomp wrote:
| Not really, no. For obvious reasons, genetic material is
| _very_ hard to get into a cell. The immune /digestive
| system fights it!
|
| That's why mRNA (BioNTech & Moderna) and DNA (J&J)
| vaccines took so long to develop!
| a1369209993 wrote:
| > For obvious reasons, genetic material is very hard to
| get into a cell. The immune/digestive system fights it!
|
| That's quite true, but it's true precisely _because_ it
| 's horrifically disruptive. (And the immune system has
| had more time to evolve protections against that
| disruption than it has for previously unheard of
| synthetic polymers.)
|
| (Although to be clear, the new and exciting failure modes
| _probably_ wouldn 't involve the synthetic DNA actually
| getting inside of cells. (Sheer quantity _might_ be
| sufficient to shove it 's way through a phospholipid
| bilayer, but probably not.))
| chordalkeyboard wrote:
| plasticizers are a component of plastic, characterizing
| one ingredient in plastic as an 'additive' in order to
| shift the blame from plastic to plastic ingredients
| doesn't change the basic fact that plastics are endocrine
| disruptors because they leach plasticizer into food.
| fnordpiglet wrote:
| Just because plasticizer has the word in its name doesn't
| make it plastic. Nylon, PLA, PET, ABS, these are
| plastics. As far as I can tell they are not endocrine
| disruptors, and they are polymers - aka plastics. They
| require no other "ingredients" and can be used in an
| unadulterated form for many applications.
|
| Phthalates are monomers (aka not plastics) that are added
| to plastics to change physical properties of a plastic,
| such as flexibility, durability, make them more
| transparent, etc. They're in fact derived from alcohols
| to my memory, and have no relationship to plastic. But
| they are also called plasticizers because they make
| plastics behave more "plastic" (in the adjective sense
| not the chemical sense). They are also suspected of being
| endocrine disruptors. But they're not "plastic
| ingredients" - their use is optional and there exist
| alternatives.
|
| It is in fact an important distinction. There are other
| plasticizers that are not biologically active that can be
| used in place. Or, plasticizers don't need to be used at
| all. Both of these options make the plastics benign.
|
| It's an important distinction because plastic isn't the
| problem at all, it's the regulatory framework around
| plastic additives, none of which are strictly necessary
| and there are almost always safer alternatives. Plus it's
| important to distinguish because it's simply false to say
| plastics are a an endocrine disruptor when they aren't,
| even if it's convenient to get your point across.
| coryrc wrote:
| ABS is only partially a plastic.
|
| You can't avoid a plasticizer and still use i.e. PVC for
| the vast majority of its consumer use cases, which is
| what you are alluding to (I think) but you also can't
| just use the same molds and design with a different
| plastic. Of something's designed for UV resistance, you
| can't use the same design with an environmentally-
| friendly plastic. Like, it would have to be designed to
| be painted or metallized or something. At this point it's
| a different product: the products as currently made must
| be outlawed. No more aluminum cans with soda. No more
| lightweight waterproof jackets.
| klipt wrote:
| Right but in the absence of regulation, I would treat
| with suspicion e.g. fast food in any plastic container
| (or waterproofed "paper" container which usually means a
| plastic layer too).
|
| I consider glass, stainless steel, and cast iron safe,
| and try to avoid almost anything non stick or plastic for
| cooking/food storage.
| fnordpiglet wrote:
| In the absence of regulation I see no reason to believe
| that metal is stainless steel, that glass is
| unadulterated, or that iron doesn't have toxic metals
| mixed in.
|
| I would focus energy on advocating for regulation unless
| you smelt your own metals.
|
| Edit: I'd be much more afraid of heavy metals from low
| quality steel, glass, and iron than modern plastic
| additives. Food grade plastics are heavily regulated, but
| metals and glass not really outside of a medical setting.
| fnordpiglet wrote:
| PTFE (nonstick coating marketed under Teflon) is safe
| unless you inhale a lot of its fumes by heating it to
| over 500F. And by a lot I mean cases of fume fever show
| up with people welding lots of ptfe. You are probably
| thinking of Perfluorooctanoic acid, which is carcinogenic
| but most exposure happens from fabric coatings. It was
| banned in the US in 2013 and none of it is manufactured
| or used in the US currently.
|
| Which is an example of regulation of additives to
| plastics. The plastic itself (PTFE) isn't the problem,
| it's the additives.
|
| I'd point out interestingly PTFE is what Goretex is made
| out of. You heat PTFE then jerk it hard and it foams into
| a fabric.
| philipkglass wrote:
| Not all plastics contain plasticizers, so I would say
| that fnordpiglet is correct. For example, low density
| polyethylene (commonly used for jugs holding milk and
| water) is flexible without addition of any plasticizers.
| For this reason it is also used in laboratory equipment
| where plasticizer contamination would interfere with
| experiments:
|
| _Low density polyethylene (LDPE) is a high molecular
| weight polyolefin material. Like all polyolefins, LDPE is
| nontoxic, non-contaminating and exhibits a high degree of
| break resistance._
|
| _The polymerization of polyethylene results in an
| essentially straight chain, high molecular weight
| hydrocarbon. The polyethylenes are classified according
| to the relative degree of branching (side chain
| formation) in their molecular structures, which can be
| controlled with selective catalysts. LDPE has more side
| branching than HDPE resulting in a less-dense 3-D
| structure. As a result, LDPE is naturally very flexible
| without the addition of plasticizers and melts at a
| relatively low temperature (85degC)._
|
| https://www.thermofisher.com/us/en/home/life-science/lab-
| pla...
| fnordpiglet wrote:
| You should say I'm correct more often, then I can
| reference that for my wife's benefit.
| sizzle wrote:
| 7 months?? I thought I read it was 120 days, anyone have a
| reputable source?
| UglyToad wrote:
| Ah yes, that study of 99 (predominantly overweight) men from an
| infertility clinic that definitely shows soy affects sperm
| count.
|
| As far as I'm aware the evidence just isn't there with respect
| to soy and cherry picking the single study that shows some
| potential link is just helping fuel a dietary myth, would be my
| view.
| dang wrote:
| Can you please make your substantive points without being
| snarky? This is in the site guidelines:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
|
| This is particularly important when correcting
| misimpressions. If your comment is neutral, the neutral
| reader can absorb the new information fairly easily. But if
| you're hostile (as with " _ah yes, that, definitely that_ "),
| then you're also signaling a pre-existing battle. The neutral
| reader gets confused by these mixed signals and feels caught
| in crossfire, which is not a state that's good for learning.
|
| The upside of battle language is that it rallies any readers
| who are already on your side, but this is not a good move in
| the HN game. We want curious conversation here, not
| escalating intensity or repetition of already hardened
| positions. The value of curious conversation can perhaps be
| measured by how much the participants, including the silent
| readers, _move_ in the process.
| justnotworthit wrote:
| Of all the worthless, flame-inducing posts in hacker news
| comments, "Ah yes, that study" is the example that need to
| be highlighted?
| dang wrote:
| I've done that at least 40,000 times. This isn't a linear
| ordering!
|
| There are many principles, which we're discovering
| together, around curious conversation. I went into this
| one in detail because I think it's interesting.
|
| Btw, if you see a post that ought to have been moderated
| but hasn't been--for example, a "worthless, flame-
| inducing" one--the likeliest explanation is that we
| didn't see it. You can help by flagging it or emailing us
| at hn@ycombinator.com.
| Noumenon72 wrote:
| It may be more educational to contest one that most
| readers might not realize is problematic (I didn't bat an
| eye) than one that is obviously flamebait.
| UglyToad wrote:
| Thanks for the reminder, while I might not agree on an
| individual level where the line between calling out
| misinformation and partisan-bad-faith-point-scoring lies I
| think despite the repeated edits I was over the line here.
|
| While it feels good to post, it doesn't really help the
| quality of discussion.
| Klonoar wrote:
| Yeah, I feel like the soy myth has been disproven time and
| time again but won't die already.
|
| This and seed oils get hit with the exact same playbook, then
| disregard significant chunks of the world that have zero
| issues with them.
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| I haven't found anything compelling about seed oils being
| awful, but I haven't found anything indicating that we
| should actually eat them, though. Have you?
|
| I'm asking sincerely. It seems to me like they're better
| than some alternatives if only to reduce saturated fat
| intake, but generally speaking, if any refined fat is
| avoided it's probably to your benefit.
|
| I often wonder if people think seed oils are bad because
| they eat way too much of it in general. Kind of like, if
| you take a shot of windex every morning you shouldn't be
| surprised when you become ill, but instead people expect it
| to make them healthy (not actually comparing canola with
| windex).
| UglyToad wrote:
| Yeah, like I get people maybe being wary of soy. There's a
| lot of mistruths and half understood myths out there. In
| addition to various contradictory findings from studies
| [0].
|
| But for a list speaking from a position of expertise it
| felt quite jarring to see it included as a definitive
| "don't" and made me wonder about the agenda of GP (soy with
| respect to fertility is indelibly linked with the far-right
| "soyboy" meme).
|
| As a chemist the idea that phytoestrogens might have the
| same impact as estrogen isn't completely buck-wild, but
| also as a chemist I know that two isomers with the exact
| same composition can have wildly different effects in the
| human body. So I'd need to see a lot of solid evidence
| before treating is as anything more than a myth spread by
| misinterpreted studies of red-clover consumption in
| Australian sheep from the 1940s.
|
| [0]:
| https://www.fertstert.org/article/S0015-0282(10)00368-7/pdf
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| > But for a list speaking from a position of expertise it
| felt quite jarring to see it included as a definitive
| "don't" and made me wonder about the agenda of GP (soy
| with respect to fertility is indelibly linked with the
| far-right "soyboy" meme).
|
| I can see why that would make you wonder. However, a few
| years ago, the French TV did a take on soy and products
| containing derivates [0] (French only, unfortunately). It
| warned about possible effects on the endocrine system.
|
| In relation to your point, there are two notable things:
|
| 1. It focused mainly on effects in females (never heard
| of a "soygirl" meme)
|
| 2. French TV is _not_ affiliated with the alt-right (or
| any right) in any way, shape, or form. It has a
| reputation of being quite left-leaning. And that 's by
| French standards.
|
| [0] https://www.francetvinfo.fr/sante/alimentation/pertur
| bateurs...
| 35amxn35 wrote:
| Perhaps the correlation is the other way around. Men with
| less testosterone (and therefore a lower sperm count) consume
| more products with soy, which is common in a vegan diet. Not
| saying this is the case, just pointing out where this could
| be coming from.
| fredrikholm wrote:
| Are you implying that having low testosterone increases the
| likelihood of you becoming vegan? I'm not following.
| 35amxn35 wrote:
| Yes, exactly.
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| Is there evidence of this being true, or is it a hunch?
| myshpa wrote:
| "Vegan men tended to have significantly higher
| testosterone levels than both vegetarians and meat-eaters
| (see graph https://nutritionfacts.org/video/how-plant-
| based-to-lower-ig...)"
|
| https://nutritionfacts.org/2013/02/12/less-cancer-in-
| vegan-m...
|
| "You know, there are men who don't want to drink soy milk
| because they have an irrational fear of phytoestrogens--
| even though soy does not have feminizing effects on men.
| Yet they're perfectly willing to drink cow's milk, which
| has actual estrogen estrogens in it! Within one hour of
| the milk hitting their intestines, estrogen levels go
| significantly up, and testosterone levels go
| significantly down."
|
| https://nutritionfacts.org/video/dairy-sexual-precocity/
|
| "If you take men on a high-protein diet--"meat, fish,
| poultry, egg white[s]"--and switch them to a high-carb
| diet of "bread, vegetables, fruit, and [sugary junk,]"
| their cortisol levels drop about a quarter within ten
| days. At the same time, their testosterone levels shoot
| up by about the same amount. High-protein diets suppress
| testosterone. That's why if you take men eating plant-
| based diets, and have them start eating meat every day,
| their testosterone levels go down, and actually some
| estrogens go up.
|
| That's why bodybuilders can get such low testosterone
| levels. It's not the steroids they're taking. If you look
| at natural bodybuilders, who don't use steroids, 75% drop
| in testosterone levels in the months leading up to a
| competition. Testosterone levels cut by more than half;
| enough to drop a guy into an abnormally low range. It's
| ironic that they're eating protein to look manly on the
| outside, but it makes them less and less manly on the
| inside. And, from an obesity standpoint, in general, a
| drop in testosterone levels may increase the risk of
| gaining weight--gaining body fat."
|
| https://nutritionfacts.org/video/the-effect-of-animal-
| protei...
| fredrikholm wrote:
| How did you arrive at that conclusion? The only studies I
| could find show no such correlation[0][1].
|
| I remember reading that vegans had higher levels of
| testosterone when _not_ controlling for body weight, as
| vegans tend to be less obese than non-vegans. Can 't find
| the source, so pinch of salt here. Makes sense though.
|
| 0. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32468110/ 1. https://w
| ww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2374537/pdf/83-...
| ceedan wrote:
| ibuprofen and acetaminophen also affect quality, which are
| daily medicines for some people with chronic pain.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Neither of these are safe for long-term daily use.
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| > acetaminophen
|
| That's paracetamol for the rest of the world in case you were
| confused like I was.
| spacedcowboy wrote:
| Avoiding age doesn't seem like a great plan for sperm viability
| ... :)
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| Worth noting is that sperm concentration was the only notable
| impact of soy consumption, leaving other measured aspects of
| sperm health unaffected (notably sperm motility, a critical
| factor in assessing sperm health).
| FollowingTheDao wrote:
| EMFs????
|
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S230505001...
|
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016041202...
| grammers wrote:
| Thanks for sharing, these studies are extremely interesting!
|
| > Because we can identify existing, relatively inexpensive
| monomers and additives that do not exhibit EA, even when
| stressed, we believe that plastics having comparable physical
| properties but that do not release chemicals having detectable
| EA could be produced at minimal additional cost.
|
| The only question that I have left: Why aren't we doing this
| already???
| Teknoman117 wrote:
| 9. You just can't win can you?
|
| Eat meat, increase risk of heart disease. Eat soy, decrease
| fertility.
|
| Life is weird to me. Humans have one of the longest lifespans
| among mammals, yet we seem to start breaking down not all that
| far into it. We don't tend to consider 35 "old", as we
| regularly live 80+ years, and even if you consider the
| "generally well functioning" span of your life to be your years
| up to 60 or so, 35 is barely past half way.
|
| Oh well.
| moffkalast wrote:
| Life is a known cause of death.
| jahewson wrote:
| The heart disease thing is probably bogus
| https://bigthink.com/health/red-meat-cancer-not-health-risk/
| brushfoot wrote:
| The soy study is far from conclusive - it showed an inverse
| association between soy intake and sperm concentration, but
| mainly in "overweight and obese men," and "total sperm count,
| ejaculate volume, sperm motility, [and] sperm morphology"
| remained the same. NEJM Journal Watch stated the findings
| were inconclusive and recommended against suggesting dietary
| changes [0].
|
| Either way, soy vs. meat is not the dichotomy it's sometimes
| presented as in political narratives. You can eliminate both
| and still have a huge number of healthy world foods to choose
| from. The Mediterranean I had recently was delicious and soy
| and meat free.
|
| [0]: https://www.jwatch.org/jw200808070000002/2008/08/07/do-
| soy-f...
| lm28469 wrote:
| Half of the west eat and live as if they were attempting a
| slow suicide. Take care of your body and you'll be healthy
| well into your 60s, unless you're afflicted by outlier events
| but you can't do anything about these, maximise what you can,
| fate will do the rest
| Inviz wrote:
| I had a test recently and I have 0% "normal" sperms, when 4%-14%
| is the normal range. Pretty radical. The doctor said to take
| vitamins, to get testosterone to normal level, and to excercise.
| In other words not much to do
| [deleted]
| andai wrote:
| Am I reading this right that the average person has 86-96%
| abnormal sperm?
| fullstackchris wrote:
| Also interested... seems insanely high
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| If normal is 86-96% "abnormal," it would seem abnormal is
| normal and normal is abnormal. ;)
| delecti wrote:
| English certainly has a bad habit of conflating good/bad
| with common/uncommon.
| mc32 wrote:
| ...doesn't that mean that those ("abnormal" ones) are the
| normal ones and the "normal" ones are the abnormal ones?
| Inviz wrote:
| That's what I gathered. The report had a set of different
| potential abnormalities , by intersecting them all the number
| gets kind of low. Here's a photo of the report if you're
| curious https://imgur.com/a/LtG2KVb
| Izkata wrote:
| Ah, that just sounds like "no one is average" and that
| anecdote about pilots.
| nscalf wrote:
| That seems like quite a lot to do. What I get from that advice
| is a recommendation to effectively change all of your
| lifestyle.
| mywittyname wrote:
| I'd argue TRT (to raise testosterone) is a pretty drastic
| recommendation.
|
| Not that it is bad or dangerous. It just points to the OP
| being at the stage where their hormones needs to be
| medicinally managed.
| defgeneric wrote:
| No doctor would ever recommend TRT for increasing sperm as
| it literally shuts down sperm production (LH, FSH are near
| zero on TRT).
| nscalf wrote:
| I'm not sure that's what they were recommended. If you fix
| your diet, get to a healthy weight, and start weight
| lifting, all of the research I've seen suggests that will
| positively affect your free testosterone. That's what I
| thought the doc meant given the surrounding advice, but I
| could read their comment either way now that you've
| mentioned TRT.
| ddorian43 wrote:
| > to get testosterone to normal level > In other words not much
| to do
|
| Isn't this contradicting? What were your test/free-test levels?
| Inviz wrote:
| Well, there's not much to do in a sense of a one weird trick.
| No easy way out here. Mine was 290/190 at the age of 33. Not
| zero, but a lot of people are alarmed way before reaching
| that low
| fahadkhan wrote:
| > get testosterone to normal level
|
| I'd be keen to what normal levels are and what you were
| instructed to do to get them to normal levels?
| bhouston wrote:
| Your sperm does reset ever 75 days. Depending on the problem,
| it may be fixable. Exercise and raising testosterone will have
| a meaningful effect. Also check the various products you are
| using for endocrine disruptors and also you can go organic in
| terms of food (avoids pesticides, which are suspected of
| playing a role.)
| tomstokes wrote:
| > Exercise and raising testosterone will have a meaningful
| effect.
|
| To be completely clear: _Taking_ testosterone will actually
| worsen fertility. TRT will severely reduce fertility.
|
| Lifestyle changes that improve testosterone (diet, exercise,
| physical activity of any kind) are correlated with increased
| fertility though.
| Arete314159 wrote:
| I am not a man, but this reminds me of a time years ago when
| I started to have allergic reactions to things several times
| a day. My allergist put me on a strict elimination diet of
| triggers. I could only use unscented products for bathing and
| laundry, organic food only, and I even had to get rid of my
| teflon pans and use only stainless steel or cast iron. It
| sucked but it did seem to help, maybe you could try something
| like that too.
| balaji1 wrote:
| Is there any anecdotes or data about the impact of sitting
| too much? And screen time?
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Well if you spend too much time sitting and don't reduce
| your calorie intake to match, you get fat. Being fat
| generally does bad things to your health, and one known
| example of that is that being fat reduces your fertility.
| guessbest wrote:
| I got rid of my teflon, but I switched to galvanized
| copper. Its easy to clean.
| hartator wrote:
| What's the brand you bought?
| guessbest wrote:
| I really didn't consider brand. I thought it would be
| easy enough to determine a copper pan versus a teflon or
| iron pan that branding wouldn't offer any advantages.
| bombcar wrote:
| I had some relatively severe allergic reactions to
| (apparently) enzymes in laundry detergent, once we stopped
| that it went away, and doesn't seem to come back even with
| minor enzyme encounters.
| jackmott42 wrote:
| Organic foods still use pesticides, sometimes even chemically
| identical ones to non organic, just sourced via allowed
| methods.
| dibt wrote:
| > In other words not much to do
|
| Do you believe you were already as healthy as can be? Those
| seem like reasonable suggestions. If you were already very fit,
| the doctor's suggestion might have been discouraging. If you
| weren't, sounds like there's a lot that can be done.
|
| A sedentary lifestyle with poor nutrition can have a big impact
| on your health.
|
| EDIT: unfit = zero resistance training, zero cardio, and more
| "food products" than "real" food.
| guessbest wrote:
| Do you mean morphology? Supposedly, it can be improved using
| the following:
|
| > Research has not shown a clear relationship between abnormal
| sperm shape and tobacco, alcohol, or caffeine use, though some
| studies suggest that smoking can impair fertility.
|
| https://www.reproductivefacts.org/news-and-publications/pati...
|
| The vitamins suggested are Vitamin C and L-Carnitine, correct?
| eddsh1994 wrote:
| Thanks for sharing, I think I'll check myself too now.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| _> to get testosterone to normal level,_
|
| How does one do that exactly?
| HideousKojima wrote:
| Lose weight, eat less sugar, be more physically active/work
| out, and avoid endocrine disruptors like xenoestrogens. The
| last one is probably the hardest to do since a lot of
| plastics etc. contain them.
| andai wrote:
| Getting plenty of deep sleep is crucial too. Sleep
| deprivation is murder on test levels.
| someweirdperson wrote:
| Temperature, too. Production is external to provide a lower
| than body temperature habitat. Wrong clothes and seat
| heating are a bad idea.
| swarnie wrote:
| Less soy?
| HuShifang wrote:
| No, you'd need to be chugging multiple jugs of soy milk a
| day for that to (maybe) matter. Better would be to lift,
| eat better, sleep, etc.
| danielschonfeld wrote:
| You'll be surprised. Some vegan friendly foods which are
| delicious are packed with more than 1x your daily value
| in a single serving. So if you eat two a day for instance
| the levels of estrogen you're pumping in are quite
| significant and very very easy to do.
| ch4s3 wrote:
| It seems that at least in rabbits[1] a diet consisting of
| nothing but soybeans had no effect on fertility.
|
| [1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii
| /S07397...
| dehrmann wrote:
| Am I reading this right? The soy diet decreased libido,
| sperm concentration, and testosterone, but the soy diet
| increased sperm quality?
| ch4s3 wrote:
| That seems to be the case. Hard to know what to make of
| it other than to say that at least for rabbits soy isn't
| hurting fertility.
| eddsh1994 wrote:
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33383165/
| xeromal wrote:
| Use your body. A sedentary lifestyle and poor diet makes it
| difficult on top of all the plastics that we consume.
| phkahler wrote:
| Lifting heavy objects seems to be the best way. Start where
| you are at, or below. Lift every other day. Increasing should
| be relatively easy in the beginning.
| artursapek wrote:
| Just have to remember to put them back down too
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| Thanks for the tip, I was wondering why I was getting
| weird looks from people seeing me walk with the barbell
| on the street.
|
| Now I fee like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders.
| WithinReason wrote:
| Must have been a huge weight off your chest when you
| stopped benchpressing
| yourusername wrote:
| There's several ways. Get enough sleep, eat healthy fats,
| quit alcohol, lift weights, reduce body fat to a healthy
| level (but not too much) increase vitamin/mineral intake if
| you are deficient. Or go on TRT.
| zerkten wrote:
| Many TRT regimens are counter to healthy sperm. Drugs like
| anastrozole or clomid are sometimes used along with HCG
| depending on the circumstances.
| AuryGlenz wrote:
| HCG might have some risks as far as prions and Clomid
| makes most people that need testosterone feel like crap.
| It's a shame we don't have better options.
| zerkten wrote:
| It's a risk/reward situation. I hope we find better
| options, but it seems like a really delicate situation.
| The studies in this area always seem really small, but
| the problem seems much bigger. I think people attribute
| failure to the other partner to such a great extent that
| people try for long enough that some healthy enough sperm
| do their job. It takes people a long time to seek help
| when it's really easy to check the sperm.
| henryaj wrote:
| Pretty sure all hCG these days is recombinant.
| anotherman554 wrote:
| My doctor says lifting weights doesn't increase
| testosterone. It would be nice if it were true but it seems
| to largely be a myth. (I believe testosterone goes up
| slightly immediately after lifting weights but it has no
| real impact as it shortly goes back down.)
| jackmott42 wrote:
| Yeah it is a true thing but the nuance is it is a very
| short lived increase which has none of the effects people
| imagine it will have.
| jobs_throwaway wrote:
| This study (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9660159/)
| found long-term increases in testosterone in men from
| lifting weights
| anotherman554 wrote:
| The study almost certainly was either poorly designed, a
| statistical abnormality, doesn't show what you think it
| does, and/or failed to replicate.
|
| If it was valid for showing what you think it shows I
| would think my doctor, a urologist who attends medical
| conferences, would know about it.
|
| What my urologist said is also backed up by a book for
| laypeople I read on men's health written by a urologist
| named Aaron Spitz called "The Penis Book". I just double
| checked and it says "Contrary to popular belief, lifting
| weights does not boost your testosterone in a meaningful
| way."
|
| While I am not a doctor it's my understanding people who
| do this for a living know individual studies are
| unreliable. Scott Alexander wrote on his blog "I think a
| useful epistemic habit is to be very skeptical of
| individual studies, and skeptical but not too skeptical
| of large randomized trials, good meta-analyses, and
| general medical consensus when supported by an evidence
| base."
| jobs_throwaway wrote:
| do you have conflicting evidence, specific issues in this
| study, or just 'trust me bro, my doctor told me so'?
| anotherman554 wrote:
| I didn't read the study because I only saw an abstract at
| that link.
|
| But frankly, I doubt it's worth my time to read the
| study. Either you posted the study without having
| reviewed the literature, in which case you don't appear
| to be genuinely curious about this topic, or you linked
| to the study _after_ reviewing the literature, in which
| case you should already be familiar with the conflicting
| evidence and shouldn 't be asking _me_ to present it.
| AuryGlenz wrote:
| People have mentioned other things and I believe Joe Rogan
| mentioned this and got flack for it, but treating you
| testicles to light therapy can actually do quite a bit.
|
| Sunlight or LLLT both work, and the latter has several
| studies showing it helps with sperm directly from what I
| remember. I did it when we were trying to conceive.
| Inviz wrote:
| Healthy lifestyle and excercise... but I also got an
| injection prescribed by the doctor as mine was very low
| (below healthy range both regular and free test). She said
| that I may have more will for physical excercise after that,
| so it may help me to get to a point when I can maintain
| proper levels myself.
| rubiquity wrote:
| Don't worry Chuck Norris, you have so much testosterone they
| were thinking of renaming it after you.
| the_third_wave wrote:
| Eat more (raw? this is unclear from the studies) onions?
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6406961/#!po=9..
| ..
|
| _Testosterone (17b-Hydroxyandrost-4-en-3-one) is the main
| sex hormone in males. Maintaining and enhancing testosterone
| level in men is an incessant target for many researchers.
| Examples of such research approaches is to utilize specific
| types of food or dietary supplements as a safe and easily
| reached means. Here, specifically, since 1967 until now, many
| research studies have revealed the effect of onion on
| testosterone; however, this link has yet to be collectively
| reviewed or summarized. To accomplish this contribution, we
| searched the Scopus, Web of Science, and PubMed databases for
| full articles or abstracts (published in English language)
| from April 1967 through December 2018 using the keywords
| "onion" versus "testosterone". In addition, a number of
| related published articles from the same databases were
| included to improve the integrity of the discussion, and
| hence the edge of the future directions. In summary, there is
| an evidence that onions enhance testosterone level in males.
| The mechanisms by which this occurs is mainly by increasing
| the production of luteinizing hormone, enhancing the
| antioxidant defense mechanism in the tests, neutralizing the
| damaging effects of the generated free radicals, ameliorating
| insulin resistance, promoting nitric oxide production, and
| altering the activity of adenosine 5'-monophosphate
| -activated protein kinase. However, this effect requires
| further approval in humans, mainly by conducting clinical
| trials. Keywords: onion, testosterone, luteinizing hormone,
| oxidative stress, antioxidants_
| zerkten wrote:
| Get tested and find a course of action that aligns to your
| goals. An endocrinologist, or urologist with specialization
| in male infertility are critical in the context of the
| original post (male-factor infertility.) Many TRT regimens
| are not helpful for achieving healthy sperm and can impose
| significant recovery times.
| themusicgod1 wrote:
| Sperm is not a limiting factor of anything, and even if it
| plumets by 99% it _still_ won 't be a limiting factor of
| anything.
|
| Pornhub is living proof that the world overproduces sperm by - a
| single, unpopular video probably wastes more sperm than would be
| necessary to cause overpopulation
|
| this is a nothingburger
| bpanon wrote:
| I wonder how the covid vaccines affected this
| mattwest wrote:
| What is greatest marginal effect associated with this decrease? I
| see a lot of talk about plastics and endocrine disruptors. Maybe
| they are linked. But let's be real here, bodyweight, shitty
| diets, and little exercise are probably the main drivers.
| bluecalm wrote:
| It seems most comments in this thread are about microplastics.
| What about the poison we breath every day that comes from exhaust
| pipes of diesel engines as well as tires/brake pads? It's already
| proven it's terrible for us in various ways. We already went
| through smoking case which is very similar. There are more and
| more cars and more and more health problems. It just seems like
| an obvious suspect to me.
| neonate wrote:
| https://archive.ph/ZzWSt
| compiskey wrote:
| But are they?
| https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2021/05/fears-over-fa...
| Deukhoofd wrote:
| That article is not saying sperm counts are not dropping, but
| arguing that that is not linked with dropping fertility (and
| that the original study is racist for only including western
| countries or something).
| PuppyTailWags wrote:
| To be fair I think it is kinda racist to categorize sperm as
| either "Western" sperm vs "other" sperm. They couldn't do the
| bare fucking minimum and at least separate by continent or
| wealth? Health?
| twixfel wrote:
| Maybe it's not the bare minimum? Maybe they had limited
| funding, largely access only to "Western sperm" (which
| actually is a reasonable category I would argue because we
| share a lifestyle to a greater or lesser degree), maybe
| they had sparse data that covered simply "not the West".
| 310260 wrote:
| If you have sparse data, then maybe you shouldn't be
| making grand comparisons or trying to make claims about
| the entire world?
| PuppyTailWags wrote:
| If they had access largely only to "western" sperm then
| they could separate it out by country, or income, or
| something more sane. It's not like the rest of the world
| shares a lifestyle!
| 310260 wrote:
| It is really weird the original study decided to categorize
| it this way. Especially because there are potentially
| drastic environmental differences between say the US and
| Australia. Same goes for the "Other" category. How are
| China and Brazil similar?
| rob74 wrote:
| Not a biologist, but that kinda makes sense: you only need
| one single healthy sperm to reach the egg in order to
| fertilize it, so even men with pretty bad sperm counts are
| probably still able to have children. So the average sperm
| quality may drop for some time without a corresponding drop
| in fertility. But then the drop in fertility will be all the
| worse...
| goatcode wrote:
| >This framework is designed to take into account a wide range
| of locations, individual conditions, and other data that can
| contribute to changing trends in sperm counts.
|
| So, just count everyone and diminish the geographical factor in
| a problem. OK, let's ignore the problem until everyone is
| affected. Seems pretty un-legit.
| Vt71fcAqt7 wrote:
| >Study aims to quell fears over falling human sperm count
|
| At least they are open about the fact that they have determined
| the conclusion beforehand.
| rayiner wrote:
| > In addition, they argued that the design of the 2017 study
| relied on racist and colonial hierarchies and assumptions
|
| This response sounds like real science for sure.
| compiskey wrote:
| strix_varius wrote:
| > "By proposing an alternative approach to sperm count data,
| we aim to contribute to the burgeoning discussion among
| reproductive health scientists and other researchers and
| clinicians about men's health," said Boulicault, lead author
| of the paper and a doctoral candidate in the Department of
| Philosophy and Linguistics at MIT
|
| A Philosophy & Linguistics PhD - just who you should trust to
| analyze medical results!
| apocalypstyx wrote:
| Personally, I have a hard time putting much stock in the
| opinion of those who use exclamation points.
| rahMen838 wrote:
| ghiculescu wrote:
| I read both links. This one sounds like a bunch of woke people
| unhappy that mens health is getting attention. The other study
| sounds legitimate.
| richbell wrote:
| I thought you were being hyperbolic but the linked article
| and study does seem to miss the forest for the trees.
|
| Surely it's possible to acknowledge the flaws of a measure
| without devolving into ideological and cultural warfare?
|
| > In addition, they argued that the design of the 2017 study
| relied on racist and colonial hierarchies and assumptions
| because it categorized data as "Western" sperm counts or
| "Other" sperm counts.
|
| > Further, the claims of decline were based on a "species
| optimum" of Anglophone developed nations of the 1970s, which
| the researchers argued was scientifically unsound. The
| GenderSci Lab team warned that this kind of Eurocentric focus
| has been used by alt-right, white supremacist, and men's
| rights activists to argue that the health and fertility of
| men in Western nations is being threatened, particularly by
| feminist and anti-racist movements.
| cal5k wrote:
| Yikes. What the heck is going on in academia.
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| Related, men are mass opting out of academia. It's so bad
| now that they have to have affirmative action for men.
|
| https://www.wsj.com/articles/college-university-fall-
| higher-...
| marcus0x62 wrote:
| > Surely it's possible to acknowledge the flaws of a
| measure without devolving into ideological and cultural
| warfare?
|
| When a professor of linguistics decides it is appropriate
| to write a paper criticizing a study about falling sperm
| counts, I don't think that is a safe bet.
| compiskey wrote:
| That doesn't come off as biased rejection at all. I took it
| as a simple "insufficient data".
|
| Great to see mob take a phrase and grab their torches and
| pitchforks.
|
| Hard evidence based rebuttal for sure, not just a bunch of
| lonely social media addicts.
| raspberry1337 wrote:
| The data being insufficient because it focuses on white men
| only, because that's where we have the earliest data, which
| is "colonial" and "white supremacist". Who's the mob again?
| compiskey wrote:
| marcus0x62 wrote:
| This isn't about anyone's hurt feelings. This is about an
| ideologically motivated author wading into a subject in
| which they have no obvious domain expertise and then
| making irrelevant assertions that the original research
| is "colonial" or "racist."
|
| It is completely reasonable for people to point out that
| your linked rebuttal to the original topic is garbage. I
| think you're the one with the hurt feelings.
| rahMen838 wrote:
| alexsereno wrote:
| It's going to be a real adjustment for a lot of these people
| to grasp that young American men are in really difficult
| situations socially, academically, and that it's a key factor
| to underemployment, violence, etc... the concept of men's
| health or men suffering feels like an attack to these people
| instead of a separate legitimate issue to other social topics
| they find important
| justsocrateasin wrote:
| Curious if you have sources for this. I agree
| wholeheartedly that there are some difficult issues
| affecting men, socially and academically, but always
| struggle to back that opinion up with any meaningful
| facts/figures.
|
| As one of my friends said, "Positions of power are still
| predominantly held by men, but the average man is lagging
| behind the average woman". Not sure if this is necessarily
| true, but sometimes it feels true. It's also unfortunately
| a rather un-PC opinion to share.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| Educational attainment is going backwards for boys, while
| girls are doing great and have far surpassed them. I
| think they passed them some time back in the very early
| '00s, IIRC, but it's been a while since I looked at that
| stuff--this is all mainstream, they've been talking about
| it in education-academia for quite a while and it's
| uncontroversial, it's openly discussed among teachers et
| c., though proposed solutions aside from "try to hire
| more male teachers" are thin on the ground--bizarrely,
| "restore all that recess you cut over the last decades,
| in the name of more butts-in-seats time" doesn't seem to
| have much traction, and, call me crazy, but if I were in
| charge, that's the first thing I'd try.
|
| Boys/men in general are exposed to a far higher
| likelihood of worst-case outcomes in a variety of ways,
| and there seems to be little societal attention to
| improving that. If women had the incarceration rates, the
| "successful" suicide rates, or the lagging lifespan that
| men have, it'd be _all_ we 'd hear about. Instead we
| figure that's just how men are, so, whatever.
|
| I've got two girls and a boy and I'm a lot more worried
| about the boy's future than the girls', for sure. Seems a
| much finer line he'll need to walk to avoid a downward
| spiral, with fewer off-ramps available from such a
| spiral. Like, I reckon he's 75% of our risk of one of the
| three having a very-bad outcome, without even seeing any
| _especially_ bad problems with him yet.
| istjohn wrote:
| Nearly 6 women enroll in American colleges and
| universities for every 4 men.
|
| https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/09/young-
| men-...
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Stupid ask: Why was "3 for every 2" not used?
| rmak wrote:
| Men have no reproductive rights at all. Women can rape
| underage boys and these boys are then forced to pay child
| support to their rapists including back pay for the
| missed years.
|
| Men don't have a single federally funded organization
| positively helping them compared to 1000s for women.
|
| Men/boys don't have bodily autonomy in US. They are
| forced to fight in wars and are genitally mutilated at
| birth against their will.
|
| DV laws are anti male.
|
| Custody laws are anti fathers.
|
| Rape laws are gendered.
|
| All the typical major indicators are favorable to women
| instead of men. Ex: age expectancy, education, drug
| addicts, suicides, homeless, police shootings, prison
| inmates...
| apocalypstyx wrote:
| The thing is, all of these issues stem from patriarchal
| systems.
|
| (assumption) men will be employed (therefore) child
| support is their responsibility.
|
| (assumption) men are strong independent (therefore) there
| is no need for assistance.
|
| (assumption) men are made for war (therefore) men are to
| fight war.
|
| (assumption) men are stronger, more aggressive [see war],
| etc (therefore) women [being weaker] must be the victims.
|
| (assumption) fathers are severe and disciplinary
| (therefore) mothers are nurturing and better suited to
| child rearing.
|
| (assumption) sexual intercourse is an act desired by and
| initiated by men who are defined by their ability to
| penetrate (therefore) women can only be penetrated [see
| also aggressiveness] and men who are penetrated are
| lowered in status to be nearer the category of woman.
| rmak wrote:
| Patriarchy hurts men too is a weak and out rightly
| laughable argument. Because that's not how oppression
| works, at all.
|
| Let me give you some examples. White masters thought they
| were stronger than black slaves yet slaves had to do all
| the dull & dangerous work. Same with the colonial masters
| they thought their underlings were weak and pathetic so
| they doubled down on oppression and plundered even more
| wealth through additional taxation and other means.
|
| All the laws were out rightly favoring the oppressors in
| every case except magically when it comes to patriarchy.
| Imagine if Nazi Germany worked like patriarchy. Aryans
| were the all supreme, the strongest and the most
| independent race so they would've had almost all laws in
| favor of Jews right? Nope instead they gassed millions of
| Jews.
| throwawaydad12 wrote:
| Within my extended family and larger social orbit, I've
| watched maybe 20 kids grow up. The girls are uniformly
| successful and seem to have significant support from
| family, school, and society. The boys have been
| struggling and have experienced limited support to a
| degree that I find shocking. Perhaps half will never
| achieve regular employment, and sadly several seem
| destined for addiction and early deaths.
|
| This is just anecdote, but for me, I'm inclined to
| believe 20 data points I can personally observe.
|
| I'm not sure exactly how new this is. Even decades ago,
| my experience of growing up male is that to a fair degree
| it's like being thrown off the dock. "Hope you learn to
| swim before you drown!" The idea that boys are privileged
| over girls seems like a cruel joke.
| somebody78978 wrote:
| Positions of weakness are also predominantly held by men:
| the prison and the homeless populations are
| overwhelmingly male.
| compiskey wrote:
| compiskey wrote:
| Society made religion optional through scientific inquiry.
| It can make America optional too as no theory of science
| suggests it's existence is immutable law.
|
| It's going to be a real adjustment for you to accept a lot
| of people are without sufficient this or that in our
| society and you're not really going to bat for them.
|
| You have freedom to choose without coercion. Nothing makes
| your sensibilities sacrosanct to anyone else.
| jaywalk wrote:
| Nice job proving the parent's point.
|
| As a young American man myself, I am constantly being
| told that my problems either don't matter or aren't real.
| I don't need anybody to go to bat for me, but how about
| just acknowledging that young American men do indeed face
| real problems instead of saying "we don't need Americans,
| actually."
| compiskey wrote:
| throwawaysleep wrote:
| A study not written by a scientist to oppose scientists.
| Allowing literature/philosophy people to publish on everything
| is as bad as allowing antivaxxers everywhere.
| 310260 wrote:
| It's not saying the study is flat-out wrong. It's critiquing
| specific aspects of its reasoning and categorization. Not at
| all comparable to antivaxxers.
| HideousKojima wrote:
| "The extraordinary biological claims of the meta-analysis of
| sperm count trends and the public attention it continues to
| garner raised questions for the GenderSci Lab, which
| specializes in analyzing bias and hype in the sciences of sex,
| gender, and reproduction and in the intersectional study of
| race, gender, and science," said Richardson, director of the
| GenderSci Lab, and a professor of the history of science and of
| studies of women, gender, and sexuality."
|
| "In addition, they argued that the design of the 2017 study
| relied on racist and colonial hierarchies"
|
| I get that everyone has their biases, but this sounds like it's
| up there with the feminist approaches to rocket science that
| claim rockets are shaped the way they are for Freudian reasons.
| The only specific claim your linked article is making against
| the actual studies/data is that there is not nearly as much
| data for Asian, African, and South American countries as there
| is for Europe and North America. Which is a great point, we
| need more data, but it doesn't really undermine or debunk any
| of the other claims being made.
| throwaway6734 wrote:
| Took us 6 months to conceive our first. We the first few months
| were "natural" attempts but then we moved to using overnight body
| temp tracking, ovulation tests, and tracking everything in the
| fertility friend app. Didn't take much effort and really helped
| to ensure that we were hitting fertility windows.
|
| Testing each month was brutal. Youre so excited to do a pregnancy
| test, but if you test too soon, you end up in this awful limbo
| where you still have hope, but realistically it's not likely.
| Towards the end we would only test once 14 days post ovulation.
|
| Also, I didn't realize how high miscarriage rates are (~30%)!
|
| We're in our early 30s and wish we started sooner because it will
| be pretty tight to have more than 3 kids
| HideousKojima wrote:
| Non-paywalled link: https://archive.ph/AfzEs
|
| I've heard a lot of theories about what is causing this, the most
| common being plastics, increased sugar consumption, more people
| worldwide being overweight/obese, more people worldwide being
| sedentary/less physically active, exposure to various harmful
| chemicals, and more. I'd assume it's probably a combination of
| several factors, but similar to plummeting male testosterone
| (which likely has similar and potentially related causes) I don't
| see this as likely to get anywhere near the amount of attention
| and funding from various governments and organizations around the
| world as it would if it were affecting female health.
| oldsklgdfth wrote:
| BPF is a common used in packaging, water bottles, etc. "BPF
| exhibits similar estrogenic and anti-androgenic effects on the
| mammalian endocrine system to those of bisphenol A (BPA)"[0].
|
| I'm very curious how large a factor this is. Personally, once I
| realized how much plastic I used - from water bottles to food
| containers - I became very concerned and stopped using it.
|
| More intuitive explanations make sense to me, like unhealthy,
| non-active and stress filled lifestyles.
|
| [0] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28741210/
| luckylion wrote:
| > I don't see this as likely to get anywhere near the amount of
| attention and funding from various governments and
| organizations around the world as it would if it were affecting
| female health.
|
| Which is understandable in the end, male expendability is a
| thing. As long as it doesn't affect literally _all_ males, it
| 's a health issue and a social problem, but it's not a
| "humanity will cease to exist" problem; the men who are less
| affected can father more children.
|
| If reproduction was limited because women's infertility
| exploded, it would be a different issue. The ones who are
| fertile can't simply bear 50 babies in a year to make up for
| it.
| PuppyTailWags wrote:
| I think it's frankly weird to see what is clearly a male health
| issue and make a jab at women's health funding when its not
| like the article was talking about comparing to women's issues.
| This is very whataboutism.
| HideousKojima wrote:
| When you've seen women's issues get tons of attention and
| funding for decades and any attempts to do the same for
| similar men's issues get ignored at best, you can get kind of
| bitter. This image kind of encapsulates the entire dynamic
| for me:
|
| https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EeE3J_jXoAABWXi.jpg
| [deleted]
| PuppyTailWags wrote:
| But like, why are we griping about women getting more
| attention, literally on a comment chain about male issues?
| We're just giving the attention back to women, which is
| what you had an issue with in the first place??? If your
| problem is that men aren't focused on enough, let's talk
| about men in this study that studied men.
| jonahrd wrote:
| This is objectively false. It's a well documented fact that
| women's health is severely underfunded compared to men's
| health.
|
| [1] https://fortune.com/2021/03/09/womens-health-research-fda-
| tr...
|
| [2] https://www.everydayhealth.com/womens-health/womens-
| health-w...
|
| [3] https://theconversation.com/gender-bias-in-medicine-and-
| medi...
|
| [4] https://www.northwell.edu/katz-institute-for-womens-
| health/a...
|
| [5] https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2018/08/24/the-
| surprising...
| Bubble_Pop_22 wrote:
| Now we only need a vaccine against HIV and STDs in general and we
| can finally do away with condoms.
| standardUser wrote:
| I can't remember the last time I talked to a gay man who wasn't
| on PrEP. It's arguable that in reasonably responsible circles,
| HIV these days poses little-to-no risk, even among sexually
| promiscuous people. And most other common STDs are completely
| curable. The big exception is herpes, the spread of which is
| not prevented by condoms.
| starkd wrote:
| Those HIV medicines tend to wane in efficacy, so they still
| end up dying much younger. It's not a solution, just an
| effective treatment.
| standardUser wrote:
| You don't seem to understand what you are talking about.
| PrEP prevents the spread of HIV, it is not a medication to
| treat it.
| guywithahat wrote:
| Condoms can absolutely prevent the spread of herpes, it's
| just it can also spread by kissing/etc.
| standardUser wrote:
| If a sore is outside of the area covered by a condom, a
| condom doesn't do anything. But I am reading that it is
| recommended to use condoms to prevent the spread of herpes
| generally, even without an outbreak.
| Bubble_Pop_22 wrote:
| > And most other common STDs are completely curable
|
| So is the flu or COVID or the common cold, but they are
| inconveniences which can last for 20 days or more.
|
| If a vaccine were to become availible then the inconvenience
| would be limited to the day of the shot.
| AdrianB1 wrote:
| I don't have the source to share, but I read that some types
| of STDs are more and more resistant to antibiotics, to the
| extent that they need combinations of multiple, last-instance
| antibiotics to cure it.
| uwagar wrote:
| hope the covid vaccine isnt the reason
| guywithahat wrote:
| Well the article doesn't mention covid or the vaccine, it talks
| about lowering sperm counts as a multi decade incident.
| Although I have heard reports that either the vaccine or
| getting covid can impact sperm count
| gniv wrote:
| This is a meta-analysis of 223 papers, the newest of which is
| from 2020.
| unregistereddev wrote:
| Considering the trend is apparent in data from the 1970's
| through 2011 (during which time there were zero covid vaccines
| administered), it is unlikely covid vaccines are relevant.
|
| Even if covid vaccines did have an impact on fertility (and I'm
| not aware of any data to support this), the data we have
| clearly shows something else going on.
| seydor wrote:
| Along with the rise of age of adulthood and general hysteria, i
| would think they are all correlated.
|
| But whether sperm counts are falling or not we need more funding
| towards artificial reproduction and extracorporal pregnancies, it
| s such a non-brainer for our fragile and unique species.
| xienze wrote:
| > But whether sperm counts are falling or not we need more
| funding towards artificial reproduction and extracorporal
| pregnancies
|
| Seems like a pretty extreme solution to the problem of
| declining birth rates. Perhaps we'd be better served by
| encouraging people to reproduce through financial incentives
| and, frankly, positive propaganda.
|
| Part of the problem is that young folks feel like raising
| children is financially burdensome (fine), but IMO a bigger
| part of the problem is the presence of negative propaganda
| (having kids is destroying the earth, having kids sucks,
| wouldn't you rather chase your career and party with friends
| every night?, etc.)
| KptMarchewa wrote:
| It's not a negative propaganda but truth. Having a child
| today means your life does not have anything else in it
| besides being a provider. At most you can argue that it's
| something extremely good, but you can't refute extreme
| amounts of time having children takes.
| seydor wrote:
| those things are popular in america but the US doesnt even
| have a big birth rate issue. Some of the most pro-welfare
| countries are having the worst crisis in europe. I dont think
| financial help would do. People really now consider children
| to be more somewhat a burden to things they want to do in
| life. I think it was all deliberate, not a forced hand
| xienze wrote:
| > People really now consider children to be more somewhat a
| burden to things they want to do in life.
|
| I think that goes back to decades of negative propaganda.
| mint2 wrote:
| Maybe it's due to commercial dishwasher rinse aid residue which
| is reported harm cells or maybe it's car tire micro-particle
| chemicals that also kill fish...
|
| or maybe it's one of 10,000 other chemicals that people with
| vested financial interests in assuming they are safe went
| "there's no reported health concerns for this brand new chemical
| and usage so let's go hog wild!!" And are now omnipresent in
| daily life.
| GaryNumanVevo wrote:
| My wife and I did some fertility tests, since we're planning to
| have kids soonish, and my work insurance covered it. Turns out my
| sperm count / quality was in the 90% and 96% percentiles
| respectively.
|
| Not sure what I did, I'm early 30s, I run/hike and I'm vegan (eat
| mostly soy for protein). I don't really avoid plastic containers,
| etc.
| thefz wrote:
| After hitting the 8 billion mark, yeah, I can see why this is
| good news.
| gadflyinyoureye wrote:
| The estimate is that we've peaked. Africa is not having as many
| children as expected. Asia is slowing down. The West would be
| collapsing if not for immigration. There is a really good
| chance of social collapse within the next 10-25 years for
| various large countries due to population inversion (too few
| young people relative to old people like China). Not enough tax
| base to pay for those who are now economically unproductive.
| sidcool wrote:
| Genuinely serious question. Is our sedentary lifestyle and
| addiction to internet and smartphone a contributing cause?
| AdrianB1 wrote:
| Sedentary: yes. A couple more reasons are clothing (stretch
| pants) and behavioral (society is on a fight against
| testosterone manifestations and sperms depend on testosterone).
| calvinmorrison wrote:
| eau de Testosterone
| layman51 wrote:
| I have noticed a few of these headlines in the news but I didn't
| really pay them any mind because of how the world population is
| actually still increasing. But then I did a quick Google search
| and found out that the rate of growth is slowing down. Is that a
| sign of this issue?
| andirk wrote:
| For cultures who prefer child-bearing-age women to always be
| pregnant, does this affect how many children they are able to
| have? And will this have a negative effect on religions who
| encourage large families?
|
| (Edited to avoid religious flamewars)
| dang wrote:
| Please don't take HN threads into religious flamewar. It never
| goes well, is the last thing we need here, and (fortunately) is
| particularly avoidable.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| nisegami wrote:
| As an antinatalist, this makes me hopeful for a future with
| significantly less suffering.
| zild3d wrote:
| Out of curiosity, do you wish you weren't born, and if so why
| not end it?
| nisegami wrote:
| It's certainly preferable that I were never born. But suicide
| is not the same as never having been. Right now, the marginal
| utility of living another day is not always negative, but I
| expect that to change as my physical health deteriorates in
| the coming years. Once that changes, I'll revisit the suicide
| issue.
| lizardactivist wrote:
| Stick around. The world and things in general will get
| better.
| bpanon wrote:
| If I ever want to get a glimpse into the halfway intelligent
| minds of self-destructive humans, HN rarely disappoints.
| darod wrote:
| "Five years ago, a study describing a precipitous decline in
| sperm counts sparked extreme concerns that humanity was on the
| path to extinction."
|
| Extinction, seriously? Why is it necessary to be so hyperbolic
| with writing these days. Humanity has increased 8x in the last
| 200 years and we have plenty of artificial means to have
| children. I seriously doubt low sperm count is going to lead to
| our extinction.
| sneak wrote:
| Look at the second derivative.
|
| Peak population is likely imminent.
| DrThunder wrote:
| It's obesity 100%. You can try to blame microplastics all you
| want but plastics have been around for a long time now and the
| amount of people having issues in the last generation has
| skyrocketed along with the obesity epidemic.
|
| You cannot sit around on screens all day, eat unhealthily, never
| lift weights, never do any cardio and expect to have enough
| testosterone to reproduce.
| Klonoar wrote:
| I mean, you have to look at the whole picture. Obesity is the
| big one to solve, but you have to kill the sugar issue if you
| want to do that.
|
| The average American (to say nothing of the rest of the world)
| is absolutely abysmal at keeping count of their sugar intake.
| asdff wrote:
| At the same time, the world health organisation estimates 95%
| of people are inactive. I think a lack of activity is the
| biggest cause of the obesity crisis. Especially these days
| where even older generations who weren't raised in this
| modern environment are often chronically online nonetheless.
|
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/06/02/medic.
| ..
| Klonoar wrote:
| Sure, but what I think I'm ultimately trying to say is:
| that problem probably isn't getting solved anytime soon,
| given what we've turned the world into with technology.
|
| We _can_ control sugar in the food supply, though. It would
| do quite a bit if we 'd just stop shoving it where it
| doesn't belong.
| asdff wrote:
| Even if you control sugar it isn't going to offer nearly
| the same benefits to people as being active, especially
| late in life.
| tibbydudeza wrote:
| Surely motility is more of a worry than count ???.
| adam_arthur wrote:
| Higher bodyfat leads to lower testosterone levels, could be one
| factor
| rodolphoarruda wrote:
| > "Levels of testosterone have been reported to be declining
| during the same period of time that the sperm production rates
| were measured in this meta-analysis."
|
| Testosterone is the new canine tooth.
| shanewwarren wrote:
| This is mostly a joke, but for a few friends that have had
| trouble, I've recommended getting into squats and deadlifts
| (weightlifting more generally).
| adam_arthur wrote:
| Mentioned in a top level comment, but higher bodyfat levels
| have been proven to correlate with lower testosterone levels.
|
| May explain a large portion of this shift. I wonder if they
| normalized for bodyweight in this study
| nitrixion wrote:
| I'd be interested in reading more about this. I'm curious if
| that correlation is due to people with lower bodyfat being
| more likely to exercise regularly which, in turn, would
| increase testosterone levels.
|
| Seems like the obvious conclusion, but that doesn't mean it
| is correct.
| ravenstine wrote:
| As long as enough people aren't equipped to take their own health
| seriously, sperm counts will continue to fall and obesity will
| continue to increase.
| DiabloD3 wrote:
| Nobody should be surprised.
|
| The past 20 years of research have indicated entire classes of
| chemicals that should be immediately banned, and yet the
| government continues to allow the use of these chemicals.
|
| We are being poisoned without our consent. This is our
| generation's taxation without representation.
| JPKab wrote:
| When it comes to issues that affect one of the genders, the
| structure of academia tends to basically ignore things unique to
| men. I think this is because every University researcher has a
| brigade of gender activists who only care about female issues
| ready to raise hell.
|
| The delta between likelihood of attending college between males
| and females is higher now than it was before title IX was
| enforced. It's simply shifted in the other direction where
| females are far more likely to go to university than males.
|
| Males are far less likely to graduate high school. They are far
| more likely to commit suicide and use drugs.
|
| Nobody cares. There are tons of programs like "girls code" but
| nobody bothers to volunteer for programs like "boys graduate".
|
| I have both a son and a daughter and it's obvious which one the
| school system is designed to cater to versus the one who is
| essentially flawed by design.
|
| Our society and academia are fixated on inequalities amongst the
| top top tier of high status humans. As if the fact that a
| disproportionate number of Fortune 500 CEOs are males means
| anything to the 99.999% of males who will never be remotely that
| status.
|
| It's just very odd that we have decided to divide humans into
| categories we care about based on identity.
| berjin wrote:
| I suspect males tend to have a wider bell curve in income so
| when you combine the data from both sexes males will dominate
| the winning end (e.g. CEOs) as well as the bottom end (e.g.
| prisons). Nobody pays any attention to the bottom of the
| pyramid so all they see is a distorted view of a few alpha
| males dominating in the top half of the pyramid.
| nico wrote:
| You are spot on. And it's getting worse:
|
| https://www.profgalloway.com/a-fewer-good-men/
|
| Essentially, women want someone who is their equal or "higher
| status". With big inequality, men at the bottom can't get
| women, while most women compete for the small group of men at
| the top.
| maxbond wrote:
| Hypergamy is a myth. Human courtship is not so simple you can
| put it on a graph. The incel community that propagates this
| idea gets real misogynistic real quickly, this is basically a
| set up to argue that men have a right to women's bodies
| (framed as a "right to sex").
| KptMarchewa wrote:
| No one argues that every women have a right to very high
| paying top status jobs, yet we try to structure society so
| that more women achieve that.
| maxbond wrote:
| I'm not sure what you're implying and how you're relating
| this to my point, so I can't address it in relation to
| that unless you'd like to elaborate.
|
| Society is structured in a way that marginalizes women
| (among others) and denies them opportunity, and feminists
| have fought to enfranchise women economically and
| politically for more than a hundred years. As this
| movement picks up steam, people who were privileged under
| this system (mostly men like myself) can perceive this as
| "losing" rights. But what we're actually observing is
| increased parity.
|
| Let's say there are two objects moving parallel to each
| other, one moving faster than the other. Let's say we
| impart a force on the lagging object and it starts to
| catch up. If you're looking from the frame of reference
| of the leading object, than without anything else to
| compare to, you might look at this object catching up and
| perceive yourself to be slowing down. But we know this is
| an illusion, because we imparted no force to the leading
| object; it's moving at the same speed.
|
| It's important to broaden one's perspective.
| tenebrisalietum wrote:
| In the US, you aren't supposed to accept handouts and are
| expected to work, because work is a virtue. However, it's
| OK and totally virtuous for someone to give you a job, or
| maintain a company structure to keep a job around so a
| person who "needs it" can keep their job, such as
| positions that tend to be filled by elderly.
|
| So structuring to give out jobs like rewards is not
| something exclusive to giving them to women, it happens
| to the elderly and politically connected all the time.
| notch656a wrote:
| How on earth is this comment grey. Basic biology is women,
| with a higher reproductive burden, to be more selective.
| theodric wrote:
| We're overpopulated. This isn't a problem.
| berjin wrote:
| It's not young western babies causing the overpopulation
| though. Why should we commit generational suicide?
| Vikerchu wrote:
| Mastrabating?
| anon99879 wrote:
| I've never written about this before but thought it might be
| useful for someone who may be experiencing the same/similar
| problem and believes there's no real prospect of having children.
|
| During several years of trying to conceive, I undertook 2 sperm
| tests with the clinic and on both occasions drew a blank -
| literally nothing. I can't describe how brutally crushing this is
| to receive as news - especially from a poorly trained medical
| professional who has just delivered the news to you in much the
| same way he would tell you the time.
|
| Since I had an amazingly supportive and clever wife, she
| researched various treatments and came upon a process called
| microdissection testicular sperm extraction (mTESE) which I
| believe was pioneered in the states and brought to the UK.
|
| One mTESE procedure later (approx PS5k privately) where they were
| happily able to extract 8 vials of viable sperm, followed by a
| course of free IVF (in some UK places you get 1 free round, but
| can be up to 3) - 5 viable blastocysts were grown, 2 inserted -
| and 9 months later a happy healthy baby girl was born.
|
| I guess the summary is, guys: if you're having issues conceiving
| - don't always assume its the female, and get yourself checked
| out asap before its too late for easy conception - success rates
| drop off a cliff after age 38.
|
| Even if you're firing blanks, there is hope
| highwaylights wrote:
| I have nothing to add to this, I just wanted to say
| congratulations to your family and applaud your sharing of this
| information for whoever else it might help. :-)
| willcipriano wrote:
| "Hey honey I found out about this new procedure called
| microdissection testicular sperm extraction..."
|
| "I'm going to have to stop you right there"
|
| I'm just kidding around, but that could really use a better
| name.
| bhouston wrote:
| This article covering well done meta analysis seems to be a lot
| more reputable that what was on this site 3 weeks ago:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33582534
|
| I wonder if it gets as many upvotes? Or if hacker news prefers to
| get its fertility analysis from theoretical physicists.
| Lewton wrote:
| > I wonder if it gets as many upvotes? Or if hacker news
| prefers to get its fertility analysis from theoretical
| physicists.
|
| Right now it's averaging 2 upvotes a minute. It was pretty
| obvious at the time you wrote your post that this will indeed
| get more upvotes
| HideousKojima wrote:
| Your link is broken, so I'm not sure what you're trying to
| argue.
|
| EDIT: thanks for fixing the link
| PM_me_your_math wrote:
| Theoretical physicists emit lots of thermal energy and breed
| often.
| pbiggar wrote:
| While the trend has been around much longer than Covid, it looks
| like Covid is going to make it a lot worse! Sperm count is down
| 53% [1] for people who had covid, and it seems 94% of Americans
| have had Covid thus far.
|
| [1] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jmv.27971
| mule1 wrote:
| I always wanted to have a family but I'm straight up too mentally
| ill to. And I reckon any woman that I'd lock down would be more
| mentally ill than me. I really think we're in a weird transitory
| period that child bearing is going to look a lot different in the
| next 10 years, seeing the age of marriage in the west is almost
| 30 for women, where > 35 is considered a geriatric pregnancy.
| There's going to have to be solutions if we want healthy
| offspring.
| seedead99 wrote:
| Even recently 28 was considered geriatric pregnancy before it
| was reclassified.
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| > Swan also recommends reducing exposure to endocrine-disrupting
| chemicals by being a savvy consumer
|
| Most hygiene products get away with listing diethyl phthalate as
| 'Parfum'.
|
| What we need is not savvy consumers what we need is regulators to
| get serious.
| goalieca wrote:
| Environmental may be one such reason but we should never omit
| obesity as a cause for any health problem.
|
| > A bidirectional relationship between testosterone and obesity
| underpins this association indicated by the hypogonadal-obesity
| cycle and evidence weight loss can lead to increased
| testosterone levels.
|
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25982085/
| whichfawkes wrote:
| Obesity can also be related to environmental exposures.
| [deleted]
| bbddg wrote:
| Yeah trying to avoid toxic chemicals as a consumer is nearly
| impossible. We've been doing a home renovation and have been
| attempting to use zero or low VOC products and it's incredibly
| difficult and expensive. The effort it requires to do the
| research and sourcing for every product you use in your life is
| basically impossible for most people.
| adamsmith143 wrote:
| Isn't this just pure BS tho? No "savvy consumer" can really
| avoid these chemicals. Merely by being outside in a major city
| or indoors in a modern home or wearing modern synthetic fiber
| clothing, etc, etc you are likely getting exposed. Short of
| literally making your own wool clothing in the middle of the
| woods you can't reasonably escape this stuff.
| karaterobot wrote:
| Consumers can voluntarily reduce their exposure to phthalates
| AND the industry can be regulated. Regulators aren't going to
| save consumers if consumers refuse to get educated or practice
| restraint.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| I've been a very health/environmentally conscious consumer
| for 30 years, but I don't have time to keep up with every
| possible thing, nor do I want to be exhausting myself trying
| to urge other consumers to shift their buying choices ever so
| slightly. Expecting consumers to do everything is market
| fundamentalism and it's often a meme put around by industry
| to shirk responsibility. My environmental footprint is
| already _way_ below average. I 'm tired of sacrificing my
| life on the altar of market economics waiting for everyone
| else to catch up, while industry pours money in lobbying, PR,
| and advertising to maintain an increasingly dystopian status
| quo.
| [deleted]
| jimlongton wrote:
| > Regulators aren't going to save consumers if consumers
| refuse to get educated or practice restraint
|
| That's literally the job of regulators, see asbestos or
| cancer causing pesticides that have been banned or severely
| restricted. Do you expect all consumers to have degrees in
| chemistry and read papers to make risk assessments about the
| 10,000s of chemicals they come into contact daily?
| karaterobot wrote:
| Nope, not saying that.
|
| Before asbestos or cancer causing pesticides were
| regulated, they were perfectly fine to sell and use, but
| they were not in fact safe for people. In most cases,
| regulation lags science. In quite a few cases, things we
| know probably aren't safe are not regulated at all, or not
| sufficiently regulated. Regulation has many inputs: good
| science is one of them, but expediency is another, and so
| is corruption, and frankly so is incompetence. In any case,
| because the regulatory status of a substance has no
| relationship to whether or not it will kill you, it is
| safest if we have good regulation AND people do as much due
| diligence as they are comfortable with. Ultimately, it's
| your health, so you have to take responsibility for it.
| some_random wrote:
| Blaming individuals is the most successful strategy for keeping
| status quo while allowing activists to flourish. So go buy
| metal straws, recycle your plastic, eat less meat, cut up six
| pack holders, and be "a savvy customer"!
| highstep wrote:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diethyl_phthalate
| throw10920 wrote:
| This is a "non-constructive proof". It's trivial to say
| "regulators need to get serious" but it's non-trivial to
| actually get that to happen. With the current
| corrupt+uninformed regulators in place, just pushing them to
| "regulate more" results in a mix of regulatory capture and/or
| uninformed regulation made by non-technical experts. How do you
| propose that _actually_ useful regulation get enacted?
| standardUser wrote:
| I get reliably downvoted for suggesting this, but we need
| _vastly_ better labelling across the board. We give companies a
| _lot_ of leeway when it comes to selling things to put in and
| on our bodies without us, owners of said bodies, having any way
| of finding out what the hell is in their products, or where
| they came from, or how they were processed. It absolutely
| baffles me how everyone doesn 't want considerably more
| information and transparency about our foods and cosmetics.
| bell-cot wrote:
| "Ignorance is bliss" is safe, zero-effort, and anxiety-free -
| until it isn't.
|
| And when it isn't - both the "not just a river in Egypt" and
| "blame some handy & culturally appropriate boogeyman"
| strategies are popular and low-effort. And usually enjoy
| widespread social support.
| datavirtue wrote:
| Ahh....low effort sound bite boogyman legislation. Reminds
| me of Florida.
| CalRobert wrote:
| For what it's worth there are people working on this problem!
| I work for one - https://choosefinch.com/ - which is a Chrome
| extension that scores products on amazon.com (and other
| retailers soon!) for, among other things, harmful compounds.
| pjc50 wrote:
| "This product is known to the state of California to cause
| cancer" : so what?
| prox wrote:
| I would be massively in favour of adding a QR Code that
| details as much as possible (without giving away trade
| secrets if that is possible) where and how something is
| sourced and then adding how it was processed. Much like you
| get a track and trace with a package.
| biomcgary wrote:
| Your proposed requirement would have a nice side benefit of
| making supply chains much easier to trace for other
| purposes (e.g., why are some shelves bare in my grocery
| store).
|
| I'd want a carve out for home "manufacturers" that sell
| less than the US median wage per year in product. They
| should be able to just display the QR codes cut out from
| the packages of their ingredients rather than creating
| their own QR code infrastructure.
| prox wrote:
| Indeed, supply chains, or a webcam to the free range
| chicken eggs perhaps. Lots of options to make things a
| bit more transparent.
| madaxe_again wrote:
| This exists in Europe - it's catchily called ECHA SCIP. You
| can search by EAN at https://echa.europa.eu/scip-database
| jopsen wrote:
| Pretty cool.
|
| But fairly, limited:
|
| > Articles containing substances of very high concern
| (SVHCs) on the Candidate List at a concentration above
| 0.1% weight by weight (w/w)
| jeremiem wrote:
| Close, https://world.openfoodfacts.org/ and
| https://world.openbeautyfacts.org/, by the same
| association. Crowd-sourced databases that you can query
| scanning the barcode using their app.
|
| The quality and availability of the information you can
| find varies greatly, but it's very easy to contribute. You
| won't find much that is not already written on the label
| though.
| cameldrv wrote:
| EWG has something that's a lot better than nothing:
| https://www.ewg.org/skindeep/
|
| They also have an app that can scan UPC codes.
| cm_silva wrote:
| I knew I'd find EWG mentioned here, they're fantastic.
| Thank you for posting.
| Jemm wrote:
| I think you forget that most people don't have basic
| competency with even their phones. Most have no clue how to
| scan a QR code.
| usefulcat wrote:
| It's still an improvement over the status quo.
| mrbombastic wrote:
| People have the capacity to learn and scanning a QR code
| once you've seen it done once is pretty straightforward.
| during covid QR code menus replaced physical menus in NY
| for most restaurants. People complained (i don't
| particularly like them either) then adapted.
| ldh0011 wrote:
| Different strokes for different folks and all that but
| I'm a bit of a picky eater and love being able to
| unambiguously mark what I don't want on my food on the
| ordering web apps some restaurants use now. On the other
| hand those places that have the QR code link to nothing
| but a PDF menu are just annoying.
| WithinReason wrote:
| Those people wouldn't be able to interpret the data
| anyway. You forget that most people don't have basic
| competency in science, and basing decisions on that data
| would be _extremely_ difficult to start with.
| candiddevmike wrote:
| Who cares about hiding trade secrets if those trade secrets
| are "just a pinch of mercury" or some other nefarious
| chemical.
| prox wrote:
| Just thinking ahead here for some possible pitfalls why
| companies would be against it.
| _aavaa_ wrote:
| Unfortunately I just see anything that they don't want to
| disclose (because it's harmful) to become a trade secret
| standardUser wrote:
| Then mandate a label that clearly states there are unknow
| ingredients that the manufacturer refuses to list.
| danuker wrote:
| On any ingredients list, that should be assumed when
| there is a vague ingredient like "Artificial Flavors".
|
| Industry plainly lists potassium sorbate, sorbic acid,
| and sodium nitrite, which are known carcinogens.
|
| On top of that, the packaging matters: PET is a phtalate
| which is an endocrine disruptor.
| mywittyname wrote:
| They are going to be against it anyway.
| ben_w wrote:
| In principal, known toxins (when at anything even close
| to toxic doses when used normally) should be just not
| allowed in consumer products in the first place.
|
| In practice, people like their alcoholic drinks and don't
| understand why that by itself is enough to require the
| Californian proposition 65 "substances at this location
| are known to cause cancer" sticker.
| ryandrake wrote:
| The good news is that the FDA sets "acceptable levels"[1]
| in food, for things like animal feces, insect
| infestation, mold, rodent hairs and filth, maggots, and
| so on, beyond which enforcement is mandatory. The bad
| news is they are nonzero.
|
| 1: https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/04/health/insect-rodent-
| filth-in...
| carlmr wrote:
| >The bad news is they are nonzero.
|
| Especially with mold, zero is very very difficult to
| attain.
| david422 wrote:
| That's a pretty clever idea. I like it! There is limited
| package space on items, this would allow producers to
| document a whole lot of info and allow consumers immediate
| access.
| prox wrote:
| The idea actually comes from when I followed CJ Chivers
| (expert on weapons and war correspondent) A lot of his
| work is done by gathering spent munitions on the
| battlefield and then tracing it back to its source. The
| life of a weapon and munitions is usually well documented
| (and can go back decades!)
| tnel77 wrote:
| I have a friend who gets irrationally angry about stuff like
| this. "People should just do their own research!" I'd like to
| think I'm of above average intelligence and I have no idea
| how I would ever go about verifying the safety of every item
| I buy for my family. It's just not feasible. What if,
| instead, we have a group of people who enforce safety
| standards and we can place some trust in them to help keep us
| all safe?
| standardUser wrote:
| Why not both? Mandating companies maintain a comprehensive
| list of ingredients, processes, countries of origin, etc,
| that is readily available to the public does not prevent
| agencies from also enforcing standards.
| dec0dedab0de wrote:
| I 100% agree. It blew my mind that vanilla extract is not
| extracted from vanilla, and they're allowed to label
| artificial vanilla as vanilla extract because real vanilla
| extract tastes different, and people are already used to the
| other flavor matching the name. There are tons of examples
| and loopholes like this.
| giardini wrote:
| This. The artificial vanilla extract tastes _far_ better
| than the natural.
|
| I tire of being the fool buying expensive tasteless natural
| organic foods and spices!
| addingadimensio wrote:
| saying that perfume is an endocrine disruptor and is
| contributing to the global drop in fertility is a right wing
| conspiracy theory .. careful bud
| standardUser wrote:
| People should be free to draw their own conclusions, as
| idiotic as those conclusions may sometimes be. But
| obfuscation only creates _more_ space for conspiratorial
| thinking. More transparency is the solution, not the
| problem.
| lm28469 wrote:
| > I get reliably downvoted for suggesting this, but we need
| vastly better labelling across the board
|
| These companies shouldn't be able to use these ingredients in
| the first place, labels or not. It's not our job to read
| lists of 30+ ingredients and their wikipedia entries to know
| if we're at risk or not
| greenhearth wrote:
| This is of course an ideal, but in our brutal reality
| corporations owe no moral obligation to the society they
| are profiting from. They are only driven by capital and
| brand propagation. Sometimes a moral approach is taken as a
| compromise, to continue operating in peace, etc. We are
| left with defending ourselves as best as possible and
| sometimes the onslaught is too much, as indicated by
| multitudes of lawsuits and entire legal industries rising
| out of corporate negligence.
| kelseyfrog wrote:
| Corporations are human constructs; they exist in
| whichever reality we create for them. You don't have to
| give in to their demands. They have to give in to ours.
| [deleted]
| lm28469 wrote:
| For non religious people, the ones who don't believe in
| the invisible hand, regulations could take care of that,
| although given the current dynamic we're getting further
| from that by the day
| fnordpiglet wrote:
| That's why regulation exists.
| greenhearth wrote:
| Who will regulate the regulators then?
| dang wrote:
| > I get reliably downvoted for suggesting this,
|
| Your comment was heavily upvoted.
|
| Please drop these off-topic distractions from your HN
| comments, especially bits about upvoting and downvoting,
| which are such a common source of meta-noise that the site
| guidelines specifically exclude it:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > It absolutely baffles me how everyone doesn't want
| considerably more information and transparency about our
| foods and cosmetics.
|
| People _do_ want that, which is why organic food is rising in
| popularity, why vegan cosmetics are a thing... the problem is
| politicians are bribed by big industry influence to not
| regulate too hard.
| eterps wrote:
| Phthalates seem very hard to avoid:
| https://www.huffpost.com/entry/phthalates-health_b_2464248
| vanderZwan wrote:
| I genuinely hate this (meaning Swan's) take. The modern world
| is waaaay to complex to offload all responsibility to
| "consumers".
|
| They did it with sustainability, with sweat shops, with food,
| with cleaning products. It's ridiculous.
| abeppu wrote:
| > Ultimately, Levine and Swan say that local and global
| actions are needed to reduce or get rid of these chemicals in
| our environments.
|
| I think it's unfair to characterize Swan's take as trying to
| 'offload all responsibility to "consumers"'. Presumably the
| "get rid of these chemicals in our environments" doesn't just
| intend "our" to only mean some hyper-vigilant subset of the
| population. One can advocate for removing these from the
| marketplace while simultaneously having the stance that for
| now, in the world we actually live in, people can take some
| steps to limit their exposure. People are always going to ask
| "but what can I do _now_ to protect myself and my family?"
| and it's not unreasonable for an expert in the field to try
| to have an answer.
| vanderZwan wrote:
| Fair, I should have said "Swan's statement in the quote" -
| the intention was mainly to avoid being misinterpreted as
| disagreeing with DoingIsLearning anyway, not to dunk on my
| namesake.
| lzooz wrote:
| Or maybe people aren't stupid but they don't give a shit.
| vanderZwan wrote:
| I did not say anything about stupidity. Nobody has the
| time, energy and even financial means to individually
| tackle all the issues out there. Putting the burdens on
| consumers is an excuse used by companies to externalize
| costs to the buyer, plain and simple.
| ridgered4 wrote:
| Consumers can't compete on an individual level against giant
| mega corporations actively obfuscating information from them
| even if they had lots of free time and weren't overburdened
| already. And corporations can lobby to even get obvious terms
| redefined (Assembled in America) so everyone needs to
| understand lawyer speak to even make sense of the information
| they do receive.
|
| And that is without even getting into misinformation
| campaigns.
| throwawaysleep wrote:
| With sustainability and sweat shops, the trade off is making
| things a lot more expensive, so the offloading is more that
| most people don't care.
| i80and wrote:
| I think a majority of people do care, but there's not
| really a way for them to express that in the market. You
| can't just buy the more expensive product and trust that
| it's going to be more ethically produced.
|
| It's a societal problem that can't be solved by individual
| consumers.
| SQueeeeeL wrote:
| Non-regulatory solutions also doesn't empower the market to
| optimize cost in a productive way (which would cut into
| profits). In the current economy for the vast majority of
| products we have two options 1) a cheap option made in
| horrendous inhumane conditions and 2) a luxury good made in
| a process that's inherently limited in aim and scope.
| Globalism basically exports the suffering of the most
| unregulated markets to the entire planet.
| sneak wrote:
| I can't count how many times I have ordered a mineral water (to
| avoid chlorine in tap water to which I am sensitive) and
| received it in a glass contaminated with a PFAS-coated paper
| straw.
|
| It has nothing to do with being savvy.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| Additionally that water probably came from a plastic bottle.
|
| Lately I've been seeing straws made from a compostable plant
| based polyester. It's unclear whether they are still using
| problematic plasticizers in them.
| jeffbee wrote:
| Why do people even buy "most hygiene products"? They're all
| bullshit, bad-smelling chemical industry effluent. A gallon of
| concentrated Just Plain Old Soap(r) retails for $40 and stands
| dilutions 10-to-1, is enough for all personal and household
| uses for an entire family for years.
| highwaylights wrote:
| I agree with you, but I don't know how helpful this will end up
| being.
|
| Endocrine disruptors are airborne and globally ubiquitous in
| the form of micro-plastics. All drinking water in the world is
| contaminated with it. [1]
|
| I'm really not meaning to be dramatic on this, but we've
| completely missed the boat on this one while we were arguing
| about climate change, and it's much too late to do anything
| about it now.[2]
|
| I'll not be here to see either way, and it's unlikely anyone
| else currently alive will unless Ray Kurzweil was right this
| whole time, but IMHO (I.e. take this with the pinch of salt a
| random Internet comment warrants) it's likely humanity as a
| species only has a few hundred years left at most.
|
| This isn't meant to be doom-mongering, it's just that while we
| worry about some dramatic cataclysmic event like a nuclear war,
| a pandemic or a meteor strike, the science seems to indicate
| it's much more likely that humanity will die off with a quiet
| whimper in a few generations.
|
| It's worth noting that this is not a mainstream view, and that
| the UN projects a level population out to 2300 [3] - I just
| don't see that the science backs up this claim, especially
| given recent understandings of fertility decline.
|
| [https://cdn.who.int/media/docs/default-source/wash-
| documents...]
|
| [https://www.salon.com/2022/01/16/bpa-plastics-harmful/]
|
| [https://www.un.org/development/desa/pd/sites/www.un.org.deve..
| .]
| itsoktocry wrote:
| > _the science seems to indicate it 's much more likely that
| humanity will die off with a quiet whimper in a few
| generations._
|
| You didn't include a link to support the claim that humans
| only have "a few hundred years left at most". I think this is
| extremely unlikely to be true. What is your recommended
| reading?
| highwaylights wrote:
| This is purely speculation without a reference, I'll edit
| to clarify. I did have this in the original post:
|
| "It's worth noting that this is not a mainstream view, and
| that the UN projects a level population out to 2300"
|
| I'll clarify above regardless.
| moffkalast wrote:
| Well yeah it's not UN's policy to cause mass panics now,
| is it.
| deelowe wrote:
| As another commenter pointed out, plasticizers are not
| plastics. It's disingenuous to link health issues with
| plasticizers to microplastics. Additionally, we should not
| extrapolate concerns with BPA plastics releasing chemicals
| when placed under specific stressors (e.g. heat) to all
| plastics in the environment. There have been no studies I'm
| aware of that link microplastics to endocrine disruption.
| Even the first article you linked specifically states that
| the primary concern with microplastics is likely a physical
| (not chemical) one.
|
| The slowdown in population growth has been a topic of world
| leaders for quite some time. This isn't a topic of interest
| because world leaders are somehow concerned about the cause
| (e.g. chemicals in the environment). In fact, the cause is
| well known and due to fairly straight forward anthropologic
| factors. As quality of life improves, population growth
| declines. This happens in nature as well. Populations under
| stress tend to reproduce more. World leaders are interested
| in modeling/understanding this as it has macroeconomic
| effects (e.g. Japan's decade long struggles with stock market
| decline). This is also why the US and the west in general has
| went so heavy on quantitative easing for the past decade.
| They are trying to stave off deflation. Unfortunately, COVID
| and the associated supply shocks caused that plan to go off
| the rails a bit...
|
| Finally, I'm not sure what climate change policy has to do
| with any of this.
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| I'll let the chemistry people comment on this one but
| phtalates are used as a 'plasticizer' they are not plastic
| itself as in a micro-plastic bead
|
| I am not sure how much of these plasticizers survives on the
| microplastic that you refer to. in our water supply or in
| airborne polyester fibers? Those are major sources of
| microplastic contamination but I am not sure they are major
| sources of _plasticizer_ contamination.
|
| In this case there is mounting evidence against phthalates
| and bisphenols as endocrine disruptors. This is the stuff
| getting into your blood stream through ingestion or skin
| absorption mostly from plastic containers, hygiene products,
| etc.
|
| This is one of the problems, we are missing studies that can
| demonstrate sources and source contribution to this problem.
| RC_ITR wrote:
| >This is one of the problems, we are missing studies that
| can demonstrate sources and source contribution to this
| problem.
|
| This is why I hate when people compare climate change to
| other problems (like GP did).
|
| Sure, there's a lot of microplastics out there, but the
| science is still out on what that means for us. Meanwhile
| we _know_ how bad Climate Change is, so if we have limited
| resources to fight problems, _definitely_ fight the one you
| _know_ is bad, even if it 's not as engaging as thinking
| about your own sperm.
| hindsightbias wrote:
| > the science is still out
|
| Same thing I heard for decades about AGW. And still do.
| In fact, they probably make up a majority in Congress.
| There were decades of people out there saying the science
| was still out to worry warts asking about the wisdom of
| dumping gigatons of CO2 into the atmosphere.
|
| We don't have to worry about someones grandchildren
| starving in 2060 if they aren't going to be born in the
| first place.
|
| I know more than a few white conservatives who have had
| to use IVF, and the AGW-denying IVF doctor I know rants
| about phthalates/plastics even though it's good for her
| business. We have a 100X more opportunity to convince
| them of plastics action than we do of climate action.
| RC_ITR wrote:
| Are you trying to give a masterclass on logical
| fallacies?
|
| >Same thing I heard for decades about AGW.In fact, they
| probably make up a majority in Congress. There were
| decades of people out there saying the science was still
| out to worry warts asking about the wisdom of dumping
| gigatons of CO2 into the atmosphere.
|
| People can _deny_ the science, but C02 concentration is
| the mechanism for global climate eras and we 've known
| that for almost 200 years [1]. I don't care who believes
| in science because that has no impact on whether it is
| correct or not (only you, my fellow scientist, can
| determine that for yourself).
|
| There is no agreed-upon mechanism for how microplastics
| harm humans, but again to the point of science, if you
| can point me to proof, I'd love to see it.
|
| Long story short, you are very likely making a false
| comparison between those two topics.
|
| >We don't have to worry about someones grandchildren
| starving in 2060 if they aren't going to be born in the
| first place.
|
| Sure, and again, show me the proof/model that this is
| going to lead to the end of mankind. I's _love_ to see
| it.
|
| >I know more than a few white conservatives who have had
| to use IVF, and the AGW-denying IVF doctor I know rants
| about phthalates/plastics even though it's good for her
| business. We have a 100X more opportunity to convince
| them of plastics action than we do of climate action.
|
| We have a 1,000,000x better chance of convincing them
| that Trump is an immortal demigod, doesn't mean we should
| _do_ it.
|
| Again, we should dedicate effort to things that _we know
| matter_ even if it requires effort.
|
| [1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S16
| 3107131...
| highwaylights wrote:
| Only thing I'd add is that at no point was I claiming
| that climate change was not serious or urgent.
|
| My point is that people at large generally don't care
| enough to be really bothered by climate change, so
| there's no budget in the limited attention we as a
| species are willing to set aside for inconvenient truths
| to consider much else.
| FollowingTheDao wrote:
| Not one mention in the comments about EMFs yet? Here you go:
|
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S230505001...
|
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016041202...
| ur-whale wrote:
| > Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRgNOyCnbqg
|
| Maybe there's a correlation?
| wraptile wrote:
| greenhearth wrote:
| We're going to be fine. We'll just clone ourselves like Futurama.
| victorbstan wrote:
| On the one hand we have an overpopulation problem, on the other
| we have a lowered fertility problem? What's the issue?
| scld wrote:
| Well, for one, we don't have an overpopulation problem.
| ciconia wrote:
| 2017 study:
| https://academic.oup.com/humupd/article/23/6/646/4035689 2022
| study: https://static.primary.prod.gcms.the-
| infra.com/static/site/h...
| [deleted]
| nradov wrote:
| For those who want more details this is an interesting podcast
| interview with Dr. Shanna Swan.
|
| https://open.spotify.com/episode/6pLW2tMx4Kw5qaeAcxj0Lj?si=q...
| rubicon33 wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endocrine_disruptor#Routes_of_...
|
| Just read this section and you'll immediately realize how
| depressingly grave this situation is. We're living in a world
| that is so massively synthetic that it's basically impossible to
| avoid these endocrine disruptors.
|
| They're in your floors. They're in your shower curtains. They in
| your food. They're in your sunscreen. They're in the literal dust
| that floats in your house.
|
| What can you do?
| kneebonian wrote:
| It is interesting, I have a friend group that consists of about 5
| married couples all of whom have been having issues conceiving
| and have been trying for a while now, but are still having
| issues. Curiously enough my wife and I just had our 4th and every
| time we've conceived within two months (even when I was hoping it
| would take a little longer).
|
| From what I hear our friends story is not unusual and many in our
| age bracket 20-30 year olds are struggling to have children.
|
| Don't really know what my point is except it is interesting and I
| am wondering what the potential impact of the increased
| difficulty in having children is.
| AlgorithmicTime wrote:
| Interesting. Our first took about 4 or 5 months? I think my
| wife stopped her birth control at the end of July and we
| conceived in December. Our second took 2 months, my wife
| stopped her birth control in September and we conceived in
| November. We're both in our mid-30s.
|
| Anecdotally, my wife's sister and her husband have been trying
| for almost a year? And they've had one miscarriage and nothing
| else.
| AuryGlenz wrote:
| My wife's sister got pregnant her second time before she even
| had her period after their first baby. My wife and I tried 3
| years with several IUI rounds and eventually had to resort to
| IVF.
| idlehand wrote:
| I think a higher rate of miscarriages also limits post-30s
| fertility for many women. A miscarriage is at least one and
| often multiple months of time lost, while the clock is
| ticking.
| philyorkhunt wrote:
| [deleted]
| bhouston wrote:
| > the potential impact of the increased difficulty in having
| children is.
|
| Less people in the world. Look at Japan and South Korean
| population projections out 50 to 75 years -- they may cut their
| populations in half, and it could keep going? Hard to
| extrapolate trends out that far though...
| aspyct wrote:
| Sorry, but isn't that a good thing? Putting aside the fact
| that we're (at least in Europe) paying for a pension fund
| we'll never have, isn't reducing the amount of people on
| earth the right solution for basically all problems long
| term?
| ben_w wrote:
| Good or bad depends on too many other variables to easily
| forecast.
|
| We could, in principle, if we really were all willing,
| rapidly transition to a beautiful solar-hippie future where
| all the food was either vegan or GM bacterial derived milk
| [0] or vat-grown cultured flesh. The Earth can support
| hundreds of billions this way using only land that is
| currently desert.
|
| We almost certainly won't do that, but we could.
|
| Conversely, rapid depopulation can mess up our economy. How
| rapid is too rapid? I don't know.
|
| This outcome is IMO more plausible than the solar-hippie
| outcome. Still not certain, as 75 years of technological
| change is _a lot_ and could very plausibility give us
| medicine that seems like magic today -- the last 75
| includes the eradication of smallpox; the first of each of
| kidney, heart, heart-and-lung, liver, face, uterus, womb,
| penis, hand, arm, and leg transplants; first each of
| pacemaker, cochlear implants, artificial heart; first CT,
| PET, medical ultrasound, and MRI; first stem cell therapy;
| robot assisted surgery; organ culture for lab-grown (some
| of the are still experimental) noses, ears, skin, kidneys,
| liver, and bladders; the defibrillator; oral
| contraceptives; genetic engineering; and too many vaccines
| to bother listing.
|
| The next 75 years could, not implausibly, give us anti-
| aging drugs that keep us in peak health until whatever
| kills us; or give us external artificial wombs; or at the
| very least, turn skin cells into healthy sperm in-vitro.
|
| [0] why isn't this already a thing? Vegan cheese
| substitutes are 45% mediocre, 45% just bad, and 10% single
| use case things like smoked tofu
| adamsmith143 wrote:
| Basically every major economy completely relies on the fact
| that there will be more workers/consumers in the future
| when you break that trend you break the economy. Expect
| South Korea, Japan and others with demographic inversions
| coming to have major major issues in the future.
| smcg wrote:
| It's reductionist at best to say that it solves all
| problems. It definitely creates some others and doesn't
| solve everything.
| ghiculescu wrote:
| If there are less kids, the ability to pay for your pension
| fund in 40 years time will be much much harder than it is
| today. So barring other fundamental changes, more kids will
| help.
|
| Most other problems on earth will be solved by more
| technology.
| edgyquant wrote:
| This is an issue with the pension system. I don't believe
| we're overpopulated but it is clearly a bad system when
| it relies on a constant flow of more children
| ghiculescu wrote:
| There's many problems with the pension system, but the
| fact it requires humanity to continue to reproduce isn't
| one of them.
| edgyquant wrote:
| Not what I said. That it requires an increasing number of
| children to adults to continue is the issue. Personal
| retirement accounts is a much better alternative.
| BeFlatXIII wrote:
| It requires humanity to grow its numbers, this making it
| a pyramid scheme.
| Qem wrote:
| Growth helps, but it's not required. What is actually
| required is stability in the age pyramid. The problem is
| we transitioned suddenly from high growth to a population
| crash. Now the age pyramid resembles more a propane tank
| shape, and the pension system went haywire. A very slow
| transition would be easier to adapt to.
| rocknor wrote:
| Population reduction is good, but once the world population
| falls to say 500M and you want to maintain it, you need ~2
| babies per woman on average. If conceiving becomes
| difficult, we may not achieve that and hypothetically end
| up in a _Children Of Men_ situation.
| AuryGlenz wrote:
| Not if it's unequal, and infertility is a cruel way to
| lower the population. Wanting kids and struggling to have
| them absolutely wrecks you emotionally, and it's even worse
| for women.
|
| But also, if it's chemically related it might hit first
| world countries harder than third world countries. Imagine
| what would happen if all aid was cut to Africa.
| simonsquiff wrote:
| One tip - get some ovulation sticks. My wife and I never
| realised but the egg is actually only around for a single day -
| it must be fertilised in those 24 hours. If you have sex after
| that there is zero chance of conceiving, sperm can hang around
| so you can conceive with sex a few days before. But outside
| that really small window you are wasting your time. The actual
| accurate window is massive guess work - some women are not that
| regular with ovulation. Ovulation sticks tell you exactly
| what's going on - tell you when ovulation is coming, so that's
| when you have lots of sex. Before we used them we basically had
| sex loads (outside this window) which was worse than nothing as
| it makes you less likely to be going hard in the right window.
| First time we used the sticks she got pregnant immediately.
|
| We had a friend who had been trying for 8 years to have a kid,
| told us she was just about giving up and thinking of adoption.
| We asked if she used the ovulation sticks - "what are they??"
| We gave her the rest of ours and a couple of months later she
| was pregnant, now has a baby. So yeah, these things don't seem
| to be as well known as they should be, and can be a massive
| help.
| berjin wrote:
| The woman's libido should be really high when she is fertile
| and men can tell as well; She smells better, and mechanically
| the sex works better as there is there is more lubrication
| and it just feels much better.
| jimbob45 wrote:
| To add to this, home sperm test kits can help rule out the
| man as well. Some men don't know to avoid vigorous exercise,
| hot showers, and jacuzzis until they realize how low their
| sperm counts actually are. (The below kit isn't the only kit.
| Shop around if this is pertinent to your interests because I
| don't want to feel like I'm shilling this specific one).
|
| https://www.amazon.com/YO-Android-Description-
| Compatibility-...
| beowulfey wrote:
| I think many people would be surprised at how many couples have
| done IVF recently... I wish I had reliable numbers for it.
| edgyquant wrote:
| This seems scary to me. Imagine a world where children have
| to be conceived in this way: it would be trivial for some
| authoritarian governments to now control child birth. I don't
| mean disincentivizing like China did but actual control.
| asmor wrote:
| Republican anti-abortion lobby groups are already planning
| this.
|
| https://www.huffpost.com/entry/tennessee-republicans-
| abortio...
| [deleted]
| AuryGlenz wrote:
| I was surprised at what the other clients looked like in our
| IVF clinic's waiting room. I was expecting us to be the only
| youngish, fit couple. Instead they all looked like us other
| than one woman who was maybe 35 or so.
| dibt wrote:
| > many in our age bracket 20-30 year olds are struggling to
| have children
|
| Wow... I would have thought you were referring to people that
| were older.
|
| I wonder what the common denominator is there, or if your
| experience is an outlier. It's obviously noteworthy enough to
| share. Maybe people that conceive without issue aren't
| commenting on it as much?
| meristem wrote:
| Some fertility problems go unnoticed for a decade. I suggest
| to my younger (25-29) female friends to have their egg
| reserve estimated, even if they at that point are not
| thinking about ever having children. This is because the
| original issue can be upstream of the couple: a parent who
| had early menopause, or low ovarian reserve, may pass similar
| characteristics down to their female progeny.
|
| (Source: conversations with IVF team)
| dibt wrote:
| > I suggest to my younger (25-29) female friends to have
| their egg reserve estimated
|
| hmm... yeah, this would be an interesting biomarker for
| those in their twenties. It could be valuable later in
| life.
|
| I was surprised to learn women are born with 1-2 million
| eggs. By 20 years old, they only have 200k-300k left. They
| lose more every year.
| confuseddesi wrote:
| I wonder if there is any correlation with the use of hormonal
| birth control prior to attempting to conceive.
| dibt wrote:
| Yes, I wonder the same.
|
| After learning about the side effects of birth control,
| it's concerning that it's the default recommendation for
| young women, and that they're on it all the time. I
| understand why. I don't know what a reasonable alternative
| would be. Abstinence isn't a reasonable alternative.
| svieira wrote:
| If abstinence is a reasonable alternative for anything
| other than sex (don't eat meat, don't use gasoline, etc.)
| it's also a reasonable alternative for sex. Some won't
| agree that limiting your "core" desires in any way is
| reasonable - and I agree. I just disagree that eating,
| sleeping, or sex are "core" desires. They are secondary
| to the real core need - happiness.
| dibt wrote:
| > (don't eat meat, don't use gasoline, etc.)
|
| Your examples are not comparable to abstaining from sex.
|
| It would be like saying "don't eat any food" and "don't
| use locomotion to move from point A to point B."
|
| > I just disagree that eating, sleeping, or sex are
| "core" desires.
|
| I may not be understanding this. Eating and sleeping are
| obviously requirements for anyone's life, and sex is
| required for the continuation of all life.
| all2 wrote:
| Sex is not required for individual survival. Food and
| transportation are necessary for individual survival.
|
| You are conflating species and individual survival. Sex
| is required for the continuation of the species, but not
| for the survival of an individual in that species.
| svieira wrote:
| It is definitely possible to go your whole life without
| having sex. Much like it is possible to go your whole
| life without loosing your temper. It may not be easy, but
| it is definitely possible.
|
| But all of them appear to be "core" desires to us because
| they are immediate, potent forces. But just because these
| appetites are strong doesn't make them necessary.
| Everyone has to eat something but (in the general case)
| "you don't have to eat _that_ *right now* " is true. Same
| with sleep - you don't need to sleep as much as you think
| you do (and you probably should be sleeping some times
| when you don't feel like it). So we come to sex. Is sex
| necessary for the continuation of the human race? Yes. Is
| it necessary _for you_ to have sex _at all_? No. (Again,
| in the general case).
| anon291 wrote:
| I'm a Catholic and fairly traditionally minded and am surprised
| by what you're saying since at my church, couples in this age
| range are on their fourth or fifth kid by the time they're 30.
|
| Even amongst the newest married couples, most are expecting
| within the first year.
|
| I understand we have different beliefs and such but since we're
| all in the same environment, how do we explain the simultaneous
| existence of the seemingly normal-to-hyper fertile?
|
| Surely there is more than just 'its environmental'
| nemo44x wrote:
| Age matters massively. People getting married in their 30s
| and trying to conceive in their mid-30s are going to have a
| much harder time than young people in their early and mid
| 20s. It's really not a linear drop off in terms of difficulty
| either - it's fairly exponential.
| bombcar wrote:
| I think people assume that since a woman who had her first
| kid at 20 can still have kids at 40 that you can start
| anytime along that line - I suspect that's not the case for
| various reasons.
| anon291 wrote:
| The comment I responded to was about 20 - 30 year olds
| though. Age .. I totally get that, and the effect in this
| very group is also obvious. Children are typically front
| loaded and then the youngest are born in a more spaced out
| fashion.
| swat535 wrote:
| Not sure why your comment is downvoted but you have a point..
|
| The difference is that religious couples should always be
| open to life so in a sense they are always "trying" as
| contraceptives are not allowed (except for NFP) hence their
| chances go up. Further they are encouraged to married sooner
| than later sense they should abstain from sex until then.
|
| It makes sense that younger couples having lots of sex
| without contraception will end up having more children than
| their counterparts.
| anon291 wrote:
| Yeah that makes sense to me. I also think a lot of
| fertility doctors are hoodwinking couples into thinking
| something is wrong with them if they haven't conceived
| within a year. I think it'll happen for most people
| eventually (and the stats agree). Of course, it eases
| nerves if your 'eventually' is longer because you're
| younger.
| jvanderbot wrote:
| Yep--age is everything.
|
| Most professional couples don't even marry until 30s, and
| even if married sooner, don't try for kids until later.
|
| My wife and I struggled, yet my wifes sister keeps having
| kids. Difference was wife's sister started early, whereas
| wife and I were married at 35.
| bombcar wrote:
| Some of it may be psychosomatic - of the "Catholic group" I
| know of only two couples have had issues, and one resolved
| after they adopted (and immediately got twins and have three
| girls that are the same age).
|
| You may also have the age issue - starting at 20 is a lot
| different than starting at 30.
| anon291 wrote:
| The age I agree with, but the comment I responded to said
| that anecdotally, he knew many people in the 20-30 age
| range, which is surprising to me.
| mlac wrote:
| Anecdata also Catholic. NFP and hormone therapy worked but it
| was a journey. Tried for 2+ years before realizing we had an
| issue and did NFP to conceive. Lots of other Catholic couples
| struggling with it go that route as it is a church-approved
| method.
|
| Tried for 6 years (age 25-31). Finally considered adoption
| and then got pregnant and lost the first baby in a
| miscarriage. Had a healthy second baby at 32. Now have a
| third healthy baby at 34.
|
| I think a lot of factors combine, but will state that we
| moved an average of once per year until age 30, so
| subconsciously we probably didn't feel settled. It's a very
| complex topic with too many variables to effectively model.
| And even when pregnancy occurs miscarriage rates are high.
|
| I'll note that young couples with kids are much more obvious
| in church (they make noise) and more likely to be at masses
| with other families. Young couples without kids often go to
| the later masses (in cities sometimes 9 PM).
| kneebonian wrote:
| > I understand we have different beliefs and such but since
| we're all in the same environment,
|
| Interesting you mention that the group I am referring to and
| myself are all members of religion generally associated with
| large families as well.
|
| I should also clarify all of them have at least 2 kids at
| this point. Which is another interesting data point of many
| of them didn't have difficulty with their first couple of
| kids but now are struggling.
| anon291 wrote:
| Okay, well you didn't mention this. This is certainly more
| interesting. I've heard of one couple that I know who are
| having issues, but they are now much older than they were.
| I'll have to wait and see. I don't really have any anecdata
| to confirm or dispute here.
|
| I wish them the best of luck.
|
| I will say, the first couple of kids make it harder to
| conceive the rest. Logistically speaking... And also ,
| men's and women's stress levels with young children cannot
| be good for fertility
| AntiRemoteWork wrote:
| someweirdperson wrote:
| > are on their fourth or fifth kid by the time they're 30.
|
| That's the difference. Couples that plan explicitly typically
| don't plan their firstborn before 30.
| idlehand wrote:
| My wife and I plan to have all our kids before 30. We're
| doing well above average financially, and we want to be
| young while our kids are young. She is currently pregnant
| with our first.
|
| It helps that she is not very career-minded, I have the
| opportunity to work from home, and I'm working a role where
| I earn well and never need to do overtime.
| anon291 wrote:
| In what sense? My wife and I certainly planned our first
| child very young (for the US at least; internationally, we
| were on the late end, like most Americans)
| ldh0011 wrote:
| I suspect the increasingly shrinking demographic of
| churchgoers is different in this regard from the rest of
| the population. I think they're right in saying people
| who plan _typically_ don 't plan children for before 30,
| I don't know anyone near my age (early 20s) who is doing
| that; many don't want children at all.
| nervousvarun wrote:
| n=1 but with my daughter we had issues and ended up resorting
| to IVF.
|
| During the "issues" phase my count was tested and was
| considered good...problem is/was on my wife's side...all to say
| conception issues aren't all down to sperm counts (not that you
| implied that, just wanted it out there).
| AuryGlenz wrote:
| That's true, but keep in mind there are issues that can
| happen on the women's side where you having twice as many
| sperm could brute force their way past it. One example would
| be her immune system attacking your sperm.
| wongarsu wrote:
| better phrasing: while trying to conceive our daughter :)
| vinibrito wrote:
| xD Jesus!
| gitfan86 wrote:
| In my experience it was a stress issue for the couples that
| were having trouble that I know.
|
| One friend and his wife gave up alcohol, caffeine and meat, it
| seemed like there was just a ton of stress they had put on
| getting pregnant for 6 months. It wasn't until after they took
| a break from trying that they got pregnant one night after
| drinking.
|
| I think modern medicine somewhat ignores how powerful the human
| mind is. It is possible that my friend wasn't actually
| performing as well as he thought he was, also possible that the
| wife had 'calculated' the exact day that conception should
| happen. Instead of listening to her body, evolutionarily it
| would be advantageous for women to be horny while most fertile
| in the cycle.
| EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK wrote:
| Actually, 6 cycles is statistical average for conceiving.
| lambdaba wrote:
| > alcohol, caffeine and meat
|
| one of these is definitely not like the others...
|
| An all-meat diet I would bet is the best to conceive, because
| it's the best for hormonal health, judging by the countless
| anecdotes (e.g. women regaining their cycles after many
| years) I'm seeing.
|
| Anyway, I just wanted to point that out, it's still shocking
| to me that people still believe that meat is detrimental to
| health.
| loopdoend wrote:
| The type of meat matters, I would look into Neu5Gc.
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| Ahh, anecdotes about consuming meat, I can't think of
| anything more scientifically rigorous and less influenced
| by sentiment.
|
| My own anecdotes tell me that eating meat vastly decreases
| your fertility rate. Some anecdotes add that it's because
| of the animal hormones you consume, others state that it's
| because meat-eating is associated with other health
| conditions which interfere with conception (obesity, high
| cholesterol, cancer), and yet other anecdotes don't assign
| a cause to the increased fertility from leaving out meat.
|
| As anecdotes, these are all of course, incredibly
| scientific.
| biohacker85 wrote:
| Meat has been a staple of the human diet since recorded
| history. Its basically a science experiment spanning
| millenia with favorable results for meat-eating--no
| anecdotes necessary.
| sneak wrote:
| So has woodsmoke been - and we know that any amount of
| that is bad for us.
|
| The fact that it has happened for a long time is not
| evidence that it is good or beneficial.
| tclancy wrote:
| https://defector.com/who-could-have-possibly-predicted-
| the-b...
| lambdaba wrote:
| you're being terribly dishonest if you mean to suggest
| this has anything to do with the carnivore diet
| lambdaba wrote:
| When the anecdotes all seem the go completely against the
| prevailing narrative ("meat is like smoking!") and there
| are huge numbers of them, that has got to pique your
| interest https://carnivore.diet/?s=cycle (try different
| search terms, YouTube is also a great source).
|
| This thread is full of anecdotes so I'm just the
| messenger of some I know of. I don't care about science
| when our bodies are burning because of the terrible
| advice some of the "science" has been giving us.
|
| - dietary cholesterol is good and cholesterol is not the
| problem, triglyceride/cholesterol ratio is
|
| - hormones from meat... that's just not having a sense of
| scale, don't know how to put it, of course everything is
| going to have some tiny amount of hormones, even the
| vegans' beloved soy
| chimprich wrote:
| > I don't care about science
|
| Only slightly taken out of context, but telling I think.
|
| Anecdotally (again), all the healthiest people I know get
| lots of exercise, eat a reasonable amount of carbs from
| wholemeal/wholegrain and vegetable sources, some fat and
| some protein. This is the "official" recommended diet by
| most authorities, and has a lot going for it, apart from
| being boringly conventional (so therefore unattractive to
| people who are excited by these threads).
|
| The unhealthy people I know jump from diet to diet in an
| attempt to take a shortcut to fitness, singing the
| praises of the most recent one (...but if the last one
| was so great, why did you have to change it again?)
|
| There are problems with the carnivore diet, including
| lack of fibre, micronutrients, red meat association with
| colorectal cancer, and so on. In addition it's bad for
| the environment and would be unsustainable if we all
| switched to it.
| rafaelero wrote:
| > Only slightly taken out of context, but telling I
| think.
|
| I always wonder how do these people get to Hacker News?
| This is a somewhat sophisticated audience but nonetheless
| we always have these meat-obsessed comments on tangential
| topics.
| d3nj4l wrote:
| I'm sure the good people at carnivore dot diet are
| completely unbiased and neutral agents in this debate.
| lambdaba wrote:
| You could probably also be sure that this isn't the only
| source.
| jvanderbot wrote:
| Well, that or all the endocrine disruptors just made it take
| forever.
|
| Probably just took them a long time and they happened to
| conceive after making those changes.
|
| Certainly they tried many methods over time, and with a low%
| chance per attempt, they'll conceive after a bunch of
| 'interventions'.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| My guess is luck. In my little circle of friends, nobody had
| any trouble conceiving. Heck, some were provably one-and-done
| (sad though it may sound, one of my friends only had sex with
| his wife when she was ready for them to have kids. Do it, wait
| a few weeks, try again, but they didn't have to try twice for
| either of their kids). One of my friends had two kids and his
| wife really wanted a third, then they had twins. Ha, whoops!
| bamboozled wrote:
| Many old people tell us about all types of fertility ceremonies
| etc available to us at a local shrine in order to help my
| partner and I get pregnant if we needed it.
|
| I don't think it's all that new to be honest, else these
| ceremonies wouldn't exist.
| rc_hackernews wrote:
| This has been my exact experience too. Wife and I...no trouble
| conceiving.
|
| Friends in late 20's to early 30's have had a lot of trouble
| conceiving, i.e. they needed to do IVF.
|
| Not sure what's going on with that, and this is purely
| anecdotal, but I've been hearing people having troubles having
| kids a lot it seems.
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| Are you guys really bragging about your fecund sperms on HN?
|
| What's your secret? Is it the microdosing?
| matai_kolila wrote:
| I wonder if it's because this is probably the only place
| they feel they can get away with bragging, but have been
| "proud" of their "accomplishment" for some time now.
| rc_hackernews wrote:
| In no way was my intention to brag. I'm pretty sure it
| wasn't the parent commenter's intention either. Just people
| reflecting and commenting on their experiences on this
| topic.
|
| I'll keep in mind how comments like that come off in the
| future.
| Jemm wrote:
| Waiting for the studies on how endocrine-disrupting chemicals
| affect children and gender identity.
| berjin wrote:
| It wouldn't be surprising if something is going on. Shanna
| Swan's research shows that male genitals (penis size and
| 'taint' size) are more feminine when the baby is exposed to
| phthalates in the womb as the levels of testosterone are lower
| and this leads to impaired development.
| halpmeh wrote:
| The age at which children enter puberty is also decreasing pretty
| rapidly, especially for girls [0]. 20% of Gen Z identifies as
| LGBTQ, which is nearly twice that of millennials [1]. Clearly
| something is going on with our collective hormones.
|
| [0]:
| https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fped.2019.00147...
| [1]: https://www.axios.com/2022/02/17/lgbtq-generation-z-gallup
| lurquer wrote:
| [deleted]
| barbariangrunge wrote:
| Is exposure to plastics a risk factor? I might be handling a lot
| of library books and those books are often wrapped in
| polyurethane to help protect the covers. Over years, are there
| any health risks to that?
|
| Example of the protective covers:
|
| https://youtu.be/v-ZnoPHCtxI
| JPKab wrote:
| The lack of federally funded research on this topic is
| astounding. It's been like this for a long time, but ignored.
|
| Even more notably has been the lack of curiosity from the media
| and academia.
|
| They simply shrug and move on, as if the root cause of this isn't
| something we should look into as potentially causing other
| problems that are even worse.
|
| Edit:
|
| The downvotes without any comment refuting this highlight the
| issue. This is a topic that should elicit more curiosity than it
| does, and we should ask ourselves why it doesn't.
|
| I worked in intel/defense for over 10 years, and part of our post
| Iraq WMD training was looking for signs of bias/motivated
| reasoning that are a sign of the group think that allowed for a
| war to be started based on false pretenses. One of the biggest
| indicators:
|
| "A lack of curiosity about a phenomenon/event/factor where it
| should be expected."
| vinyl7 wrote:
| Well I mean, given the public discourse of the past decade...it
| seems to me that they _want_ the population to decline. So it
| makes sense that no one has in interest in investigating this.
| bhouston wrote:
| "they want the population to decline"
|
| Who is "they"?
| jtbayly wrote:
| Some portion of commenters on HN, for one.
|
| There are plenty of people who are so desperate about
| anthropogenic global warming that they're willing to forgo
| having children and proclaim that the disastrous decline in
| fertility rates in places like Korea (see recent HN thread)
| are actually good and necessary because we need fewer
| humans on this earth.
| coldpie wrote:
| Yo. Number 1 reason I'm not having kids is I don't like
| kids. Number 2 reason is I don't think it's ethical to
| intentionally bring a child into a world that's going to
| be torn to pieces by climate disasters & wars.
| nradov wrote:
| People throughout history continued having children
| through wars, disasters, and climate changes (ice age)
| worse than anything that our children will experience.
| Climate change is a problem, but a manageable one. No
| need to panic.
|
| https://www.basicbooks.com/titles/bjorn-lomborg/false-
| alarm/...
| coldpie wrote:
| > The majority of scientists reacted negatively to The
| Skeptical Environmentalist and he was formally accused of
| scientific misconduct over the book; the Danish
| Committees on Scientific Dishonesty concluded in an
| evaluation of the book that "one couldn't prove that
| Lomborg had deliberately been scientifically dishonest,
| although he had broken the rules of scientific practice
| in that he interpreted results beyond the conclusions of
| the authors he cited." His positions on climate change
| have been challenged by experts and characterised as
| cherry picking.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bj%C3%B8rn_Lomborg
|
| Ehh.
|
| If we were actually on a positive trajectory with a
| glimmer of hope on the horizon, I might agree with you.
| But we're not. Things are bad and the trends are only
| getting worse. Many places will become uninhabitable; the
| residents will emigrate elsewhere; the places being
| migrated to will react by electing right-wing
| nationalists; some resource or border conflict will
| result in war. It's gonna be bad. I'm not going to feed
| more lives into that meat grinder.
| nradov wrote:
| Wikipedia is heavily manipulated and not considered a
| reliable source on scientific issues. Do you have a
| substantive criticism of Bjorn Lomborg's positions?
|
| https://lexfridman.com/climate-change-debate/
|
| People have been confidently predicting doom for
| millennia, yet it keeps on not happening. Humans are
| pretty resilient.
| coldpie wrote:
| I mean unless you're a climate scientist yourself, at
| some point you have to choose your experts to trust.
| Almost every climate scientist disagrees with this guy.
| I'm far more likely to trust the IPCC and their hundreds
| of experts than I am this single guy.
|
| See especially pages 16-17 of the Summary Report for
| policy-makers: https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg2/downloa
| ds/report/IPCC_AR6...
|
| We're well on track to blow past 2C of warming, where
| every single risk/impact category as at the top of the
| scale ("Very High").
|
| A popsci summary, if you prefer:
| https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/04/ipcc-report-the-
| next...
|
| > People have been confidently predicting doom for
| millennia, yet it keeps on not happening. Humans are
| pretty resilient.
|
| I'm definitely not predicting extinction, however massive
| climate-driven impacts are unavoidable, and large-scale
| war seems an almost inevitable consequence of those
| impacts. Large-scale war has definitely happened before,
| quite a few times.
| JPKab wrote:
| You and my father have something in common:
|
| He is an "apocalyptic environmentalist" in the sense that
| he believes climate change is going to be such a
| catastrophic event that human existence will be
| miserable. When I was a kid, he was an evangelical
| Christian who believed the end times were coming any day.
| He had a nasty divorce, a mid-life crisis, met a woman
| who worked at PETA, became a radical vegan, and then,
| surprise surprise, once again embraced a new form of
| apocalypse to replace the End Times one: climate
| apocalypse.
|
| He's a mathematically illiterate narcissist, a
| psychological subtype who is known to be the most prone
| to apocalyptic ideologies.
|
| Every generation in history has had a significant
| minority who believed that the end of the world is
| coming. Congratulation, you're one of them in this
| generation.
|
| Climate change is real. Excess CO2 caused warming is
| going to create major challenges for the planet. Humanity
| will go on, we will innovate our way out of it, and like
| every Malthusian cult throughout history, you and your
| fellow apocalypse believers will be proven wrong until
| you find a new reason to ruin everyone's dinners with
| negativity.
|
| The churches my dad had me in when I was a kid taught me
| how deranged people can be, and how good it makes them
| feel to be part of a heroic tribe trying to warn everyone
| the world is ending. I know what it looks like, I've seen
| it Christians, I've seen it in hippies, and I see it in
| yuppies now too.
| jackmott42 wrote:
| World population is still growing. It seems ironic you
| are casting aspersions towards people desperately trying
| to fight climate change, when you are desperately worried
| about population decline, when it isn't declining.
| xienze wrote:
| It IS declining in western countries though, which is
| where all the "stop having children, you're killing the
| earth!" propaganda is concentrated. ALL the population
| growth is happening in Africa and parts of Asia, that's
| it. But curiously, no one is chiding poor Africans for
| having so many children.
| KptMarchewa wrote:
| >But curiously, no one is chiding poor Africans for
| having so many children.
|
| Really? Most people acknowledge that it's very bad.
| [deleted]
| KptMarchewa wrote:
| Not only global warming, but actual rate of resource
| consumption and pollution is way, way too high.
| teeray wrote:
| Usually "they" in this context refers to "the powers that
| be"
| Vt71fcAqt7 wrote:
| Climate activists, at least generally speaking.
| weberer wrote:
| >the media and academia
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| Its the same with obesity, which has been sharply increasing in
| much of the world since the 1970s, but pretty much all the
| conventional explanations (increased availability, excess
| sugar, excess carbs, excess fat, decreased physical activity,
| etc.) don't seem to stand up to scrutiny.
|
| Hypothesis: the cause in both cases is likely industrial
| contaminants considered essential to the running of modern
| civilization, so nobody wants to, or is encouraged not to, look
| too hard.
| jeffreyrogers wrote:
| Doesn't the existence of anorexia (which appears to be
| socially transmissible) and the fact that people who take up
| hobbies like bodybuilding are able to manage their fat levels
| well suggest that environmental contaminants aren't the whole
| story? The staple bodybuilding foods are rice and chicken
| breast. That's about as industrialized as you can get.
|
| If there were people getting fat eating broccoli, potatoes,
| chicken, and salad I would buy the contamination argument,
| but when you look at what people who have trouble managing
| their weight actually eat it is never simple foods like that.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| > Doesn't the existence of anorexia (which appears to be
| socially transmissible) and the fact that people who take
| up hobbies like bodybuilding are able to manage their fat
| levels well suggest that environmental contaminants aren't
| the whole story?
|
| No? Genetics is the best predictor of obesity, but as with
| drugs any contaminant would have varying degrees of effect
| on the population, including sometimes a paradoxical
| effect.
|
| > If there were people getting fat eating broccoli,
| potatoes, chicken, and salad I would buy the contamination
| argument, but when you look at what people who have trouble
| managing their weight actually eat it is never simple foods
| like that.
|
| And a whole lot of people are not getting fat at all eating
| foods like and barely exercising. Why do some people have
| to pay attention to what they eat and others don't? Why has
| the percentage of the population that is obese increasing?
| jeffreyrogers wrote:
| Paradoxical effects are rare and tend to happen only with
| psychoactive medications. I see very little evidence for
| paradoxical effects playing a major role, but obviously
| it can't be ruled out entirely. I don't find paradoxical
| effects a convincing explanation for anorexia because of
| how people develop anorexia. You can become anorexic
| merely by changing your social circle or even your
| desired social circle, so why would a paradoxical effect
| occur in that situation when presumably the environment
| hasn't changed in terms of chemical consumption.
|
| > Why has the percentage of the population that is obese
| increasing?
|
| Most likely explanation is that they are eating foods
| that aren't satiating and that are high calorie, foods
| that weren't common in the past. Like I said earlier,
| people who are eating simple foods like the ones I listed
| don't get fat. Genetics seems to play a role in that some
| people can eat junk and feel full but most can't.
| Arete314159 wrote:
| I read an interesting study on this. It showed that obesity
| rates were lower in places like Colorado, and theorized that
| the reason was that they were at the headwaters of their
| water source, so there was less opportunity for contaminants
| to enter their water.
| [deleted]
| JPKab wrote:
| I live in Colorado, and I think it's just less oxygen and
| its effects on metabolism.
|
| It's definitely not a topic that's examined enough.
| francisofascii wrote:
| That is interesting, but probably the reason is the highly
| active/outdoor culture of Colorado leads to lower obesity
| rates and people who are less obese move to Colorado.
| JPKab wrote:
| Nope. It's altitude. I live in Colorado.
|
| The science on this altitude effect has been pretty
| thoroughly conducted, with potential correlating factors
| accounted for in multivariate regression models.
|
| Denver and its suburbs are FILLED with people who are as
| unhealthy and inactive as the rest of the country. Even
| in these places, in the poorest neighborhoods, they are
| less obese.
|
| I have an identical twin brother who lives in Portland,
| and since I've moved here I've stayed about 10-15 lbs
| lighter than him. It's a single, anecdotal data point,
| and completely unscientific, but he swears he eats
| healthier than me lol.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| In the article series I think parent is referencing[0]
| they talk about Colorado along with a bunch of other
| things people come up with based on "common sense".
|
| Notably higher altitude alone seems highly correlated
| with lower obesity and diabetes rates regardless of
| physical activity. Again, this points to environmental
| factors.
|
| [0] https://slimemoldtimemold.com/2021/07/07/a-chemical-
| hunger-p...
| patall wrote:
| How do you determine that? As far as I have heard from people
| working in fertilization clinics, they can help pretty much all
| couples that have problems with conceiving due to male
| fertility issues. You need to go there in the first place, but
| once you request help, you get it.
| JPKab wrote:
| So that's your take?
|
| "This thing that humans have done for eons without medical
| assistance now requires it and that's totally fine. Nothing
| to see here."
|
| Really?
| patall wrote:
| No, you do not understand. What I am saying is that we
| understand very well what is happening. 'The science is
| there'. What does not exist is the policy (to prevent it)
| and we only react when absolutely necessary. Like with
| poverty, to give another example.
| KptMarchewa wrote:
| People slept on trees and wore nothing too.
|
| You can extrapolate this on pretty much all human
| existence.
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