Male sterility

1993/12/01 Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Osasuna

Western men are more sterile than forty years ago. The quality and quantity of sperm have decreased a lot, around 50%. For many people this trend can have different reasons.

One of them is to wear too narrow garments. If the reproductive organs are covered with tight clothing, there may be relatively high temperatures, which can lead to the death of sperm. The high degree of sterility among men of Venezuelan steel mills (in some cases 55%) should also be attributed to heat.

The female diet also has to do, since more and more estrogens are internalized and accumulate in the hormones of the fetus. Oral contraceptives incite the body to expel synthetic estrogens and they can pass to the water cycle.

Eating habits also have to do with this problem. In low-fat regimes, natural estrogens are more absorbent than normal, while in high-fat ones they are easier to remove.

For some specialists, pollution also has to do with this problem. Among the most cited are polychlorinated difenilos, some remains of combustion of fuels and some detergents.

The anabolizing estrogens used for the rapid growth of livestock are responsible for certain cases of sterility in humans. However, since 1981, cattle breeding by estrogens has been banned in Europe.