Cell phones = the new birth control?
mannybolone
Los Angeles, CA 15,025 Posts
http://www.guardian.co.uk/mobile/article/0,,1930026,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=1Warning to male mobile phone users: chatting too long may cut sperm count[/b] Men who use mobile phones for long periods at a time may be at risk of damaging their sperm, according to research by American scientists.Samples taken from men attending a fertility clinic revealed that their sperm declined steadily in number, quality and ability to swim as mobile phone usage increased. Where men used their mobiles for more than four hours a day, researchers found a 30% drop in sperm motility or movement and viability when compared with men who did not use a mobile phone.Article continuesScientists believe the study is too preliminary to prove an unequivocal link between mobile phones and falling sperm counts, but the work received a cautious welcome from other scientists who called for further studies to rule out other factors known to influence sperm quality, such as age, weight, smoking, stress and whether people had sedentary jobs.Ashok Agarwal, who presented his findings at the American Society for Reproductive Medicine conference in New Orleans, stressed the study did not prove mobile phones were damaging male fertility, but urged scientists to investigate the possibility."There was a significant decrease in the most important measures of sperm health and that should definitely be reflected in a decrease in fertility, which is seen worldwide," he said."People use mobile phones without thinking twice what the consequences might be. It is just like using a toothbrush, but mobiles could be having a devastating effect on fertility. It still has to be proved, but it could be having a huge impact because mobiles are so much part of our lives."Almost 1 billion people use mobile phones around the world and the number is growing in many countries at 20%-30% annually. In another five years, the number of mobile phone users is predicted to double.Dr Agarwal and colleagues at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine at Case Western Reserve University in Ohio divided 361 men attending the centre for infertility tests into four groups, depending on their mobile phone usage. The groups ranged from none, less than two hours a day, two to four hours a day and more than four hours a day.Subsequent tests on the men's sperm showed significant declines in four standard measures of sperm quality, including count, viability, motility and shape, with each falling with increased phone usage. Men who used mobile phones for more than four hours a day were found to have median sperm counts of 50m per millilitre.Those using mobiles for two to four hours a day had sperm counts of 59m per ml, increasing to 69m per ml for less than two hours' usage a day and 86m per ml for men who did not use mobile phones.According to the World Health Organisation, a normal sperm count can be anything between 20m and 200m per ml.Dr Agarwal said mobile phone radiation may harm sperm by damaging DNA, disrupting cells that produce testosterone in the testes, or shrinking the tubules where sperm are created. "It is true that all the men in the study were seeking infertility treatment, but not all these men have fertility problems themselves," he said.Allan Pacey, senior lecturer in andrology at Sheffield University, said: "This is a good quality study, but I don't think it tackles the issue. If you're using your phone for four hours a day, presumably it is out of your pocket for longer. That raises a big question: how is it that testicular damage is supposed to occur?""If you are holding it up to your head to speak a lot, it makes no sense it is having a direct effect on your testes," he said. "Maybe people who use a phone for four hours a day spend more time sitting in cars, which could mean there is a heat issue. It could be they are more stressed, or more sedentary and sit about eating junk food getting fat."Those seem to be better explanations than a phone causing the damage at such a great distance," he added.Last year, scientists in Hungary claimed that men who carry mobile phones in their pockets may risk damaging their sperm count after studying mobile phone usage of 221 men, but no conclusive impact on sperm count or motility has ever been found by other scientists. Another study last year at Newcastle University in New South Wales showed that blasting mice with radiowaves similar to mobile phone radiation 12 hours a day for a week damaged the DNA in their sperm.Alasdair Philips, director of the consumer pressure group Powerwatch, suggested men might want to hold the phone away from them before sending texts, but added that mobile phones might only affect sperm by causing heating in the groin area, especially if men were texting from their laps. "Sperm is very temperature sensitive as shown by many studies, and a short-term rise in temperature could be responsible," he said.
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Put it on viibraaate
The new guidelines will be imposed next month for all new handset models submitted for certification by the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association, the Washington-based organization confirmed today.
The new policy comes amid growing doubts over the long-presumed safety of holding a wireless phone against the head for prolonged periods of time. British researchers caused a stir in May with a report saying there???s no evidence cell phone radiation is dangerous, but that future research may show otherwise..."
your balls are outside your body to keep them cooler
the laptop inceases the temp and sperm die as a result of the heat and the emr emitted from the machine
With regard to cell phones
call me a freak----as i am sure many will be quick to do
BUT IMHO i still beleive there will be lots of folks with brain/jaw/ear/eye/face tumors in the next 10 years.
i see littke kids with cellys and girls who talk for hours on them to their friends
unnatural as hell
no matter how you market it EMF and EMR are RADIATION and any form of radiation has an affect on cellular integrity for better or worse
its just science
and fact does not go into doubt here
at the end of the day nokia/verizon/cingular and pals only care about one thing and its not your health
YOU USE YOUR PALM TO CHECK RECORDS AND THEN COME HERE TALKING ABOUT RADIATION?
BAN
gee george i'm not sorry i upset you
by any chance are you and reynaldo penis pals?
I AM UPSET. YOU ARE A TOY DIGGER.
An association but not a cause
Commentary by Nigel Hawkes
THE great epidemiologist Sir Austin Bradford Hill set various tests to define how to link diseases with their causes.
Association is not causation, as doctors never tire of telling us. The use of the brassiere has coincided with a rise in breast cancer, but this is pure concidence: one does not cause the other.
Among Sir Austin???s more important criteria were the strength of the association, whether more of the cause generated more of the disease and, not least, biological plausibility.
The study on mobile phone use and sperm count seems to satisfy the first two, but not the third. There really seems no good reason why using a mobile phone close to the ear should affect sperm production in the testicles.
The ???radiation??? emitted by a mobile phone is radiofrequency waves, which do not damage DNA. Also, if exposure to such radio waves damaged sperm, one would expect to have seen it first in those who work close to powerful radio-frequency sources ??? radar operators, for example.
It is far more plausible, in this case, to suppose that a common factor links the use of mobile phones and the reduction in sperm quality and quantity. Dr Agarwal suggests several possibilities.
However, Sir Austin said that biological plausibility depended on the biological knowledge of the day. ???The association we observe may be one new to science or medicine and we must not dismiss it too lightheartedly as just too odd,??? he said.
The wider problem with mobile phone research is that as it increases, so does the chance that somebody will find an association of this sort. The only recourse is to repeat the research, meeting Sir Austin???s other requirement, consistency.
Only if the same association is shown by others and defies simple explanation should it be taken seriously.
Case-control studies of the type used by Dr Agarwal, it may be added, are notorious for producing spurious associations. In an ideal world, a better methodology should be used to check his findings ??? if anyone can devise one.
Reminds me of this
Proving that the decline of pirates is causing global warming.