Scientists have spent decades trying to untangle puzzling questions over falling sperm concentrations. A new analysis of 25 studies of pesticides shows a clear connection, researchers say.

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

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

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

  • @GregoryTheGreat
    9•11 months ago

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

    • @[email protected]
      27•11 months ago

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

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

        • @[email protected]
          3•11 months ago

          Sterilization is not equivalent to birth control. To be considered birth control, fertility should return shortly after the cessation of usage. Since vasectomies are considered permanent it’s not in the same category.

          Although, that’s beside the point, and I’m pretty sure you know it and are being cheeky. The point is if researchers trying to target just fertility with no unwanted adverse health effects have a hard time developing such a drug, then we should assume that it is very likely that substances that cause decreased fertility are also causing other adverse health consequences.

    • IWantToFuckSpez
      11•11 months ago

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

    • NoneOfUrBusiness
      3•11 months ago

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

      • @GregoryTheGreat
        2•11 months ago

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

        • bluGill
          1•11 months ago

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

        • BolexForSoup
          1•11 months ago

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

        • BraveSirZaphod
          1•11 months ago

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

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

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

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

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