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.”

  • madeinthebackseat@lemmy.world
    1214·
    1 year ago

    It’s purely anecdotal, but go to a small town in Iowa and you may notice something a little unexpected - there’s seemingly a larger than normal population of gay and transgender people.

    Again, anecdotal, but I visit there frequently for work. My gut tells me the crop treatments are screwing with hormones…unless there’s some other explanation.

    • GBU_28@lemm.eeEnglish
      152·
      1 year ago

      Proooobbbbably that those folks finally feel remotely safe being “out”

      • wildginger@lemmy.myserv.one
        135·
        1 year ago

        People mock the gay frogs thing, but pesticide runoff was mucking with frog hormones, causing a genuine physical sex shift. Frogs are capable of shifting sex under specific conditions, and the chemical pollution was forcing the change. Huge ecological damage.

        It was perhaps the single time alex jones was correct about anything, and if he hadnt called the frogs gay he probably wouldnt have been mocked for it.

          • EmpathicVagrant@lemmy.world
            31·
            1 year ago

            They do that anyway if the population ratio is off by enough, but yeah they transitioned much more rapidly and more often. They also would excrete everything at once so currently male frogs would read another current male as a mate. Technically it was a grain of truth with zero nuance

          • queermunist she/her
            56·
            1 year ago

            I honestly wonder if being exposed to xenoestrogens in the womb is why I’m trans.

            I’m not unhappy about it, just something I think about!

    • guckfoogle@sh.itjust.works
      51·
      1 year ago

      I grew up in Iowa, and I live in a large Ohio city now. There are barely any LGBT folks in Iowa, even per capita, it’s just not normal or accepted there en mass. There was literally only one gay kid in my high school of 1500.

      I move to Cleveland, then I meet more LGBT people than I have ever seen in my life, even having 4 lesbians in my workplace and one FTM.

      But social media is probably the biggest driving factor behind the rise of so many LGBT people in the past decade.

    • gandalf_der_12te@feddit.de
      1·
      1 year ago

      it’s also the cosmetics that contain a shitload of hormones or stuff that messes with hormones, that causes a behavioral shift in society.

    • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
      11·
      1 year ago

      Observation bias I imagine that and the more open society. There were always LGBT people, they just were in the closet when the theist were determined to murder them.