Experts blame chemicals and modern lifestyles for lower sperm count

October 11, 2018
By Audrey Morton

Sperm quality is reducing by two percent per year according to a study of 124,000 men visiting fertility clinics in Spain and the USA.

Scientists in Valencia and New Jersey carried out the first large-scale study of total motile sperm count.

Houston-area men are found to have a lower sperm count possibly due to chemicals and modern lifestyles.

CCRM Fertility Houston reproductive endocrinologist and reproductive specialist Dr. James Nodler said they’ve been seeing this trend in Houston for years.

“All the chemicals that are in our air locally. Another can be, as we all know, Houston has the penchant for being a more overweight, or obese city,” said Nodler. “If you reduce that from 50 to 60 million down to a couple million below that, you still got millions and millions of sperm left.”

Chemicals used to make plastics flexible and furniture flame-retardant…which can enter the food chain via plants or animals…are being blamed, as well as pesticides, hormone-disrupting chemicals, stress, smoking, obesity, not enough sleep, too much alcohol, caffeine and processed meat.

He said maybe over the course of many, many, many generations, it could affect the world’s re-population.

Nodler said this is more of a wakeup call to what we’re putting into the environment and our bodies.

Fertility Specialists of Texas and Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility Dr. Daniel Skora said it does indicate that there’s something going on in civilization that’s changing infertility.

“This study did not look at actual pregnancy rates. It just looked at specifically sperm count,” said Skora. “The likelihood of it actually effecting pregnancy rates and fertility, in general, is quite low.”

Skora said obesity leads to an increase in the estrogen of the man, which lowers quality of sperm.

Last year, a landmark found a 59 percent decrease in Western sperm counts from 1973 to 2011.