More and more medical professionals have been trying over the last decade or so to draw attention to the fact that, especially in western countries, the average testosterone levels and sperm count have dramatically decreased, especially since this seems to be a quite recent phenomenon (in the last 10 years alone both have dropped alarmingly fast).
This is not a joking matter, nor is it inconsequential. It's an actual health problem. Especially low testosterone levels in men are linked to numerous health problems (which are much more numerous and serious than just lowered libido and physical effemination.) On top of that, these levels have dropped so dramatically that many of these professionals are already outright worried about the survival of humanity: If they keep dropping at the rate that they have been, it won't be long when fertility rates will plummet.
No clear reasons for this sudden dramatic drop of both things have been definitely found, but some hypotheses have been presented by many.
Here is one list of possible reasons for this. It may be one of these, or a combination of them:
1) Food quality and the amount of physical exercise has been dropping, especially in the western world, over the last decades, and with the advent of affordable computers, gaming consoles and, especially, smartphones, this drop has only accelerated in the last decade.
Especially the last ones are arguably extraordinarily addictive for many people, and even people who otherwise eat healthily and exercise may see their amount of physical exertion diminished because they are so tied to their phones all the time. (It's especially jarring to see people glued to their phones in the gym.)
2) Pollution has increased (especially microplastics), as well as the use of chemicals which long-term effects are unknown.
This is one of the possible reasons seriously presented by many medical professionals. There are several chemicals used in the manufacturing of a huge amount of products (especially those containing plastics, which is almost every single product in existence) that can have an actual effect on hormone production and other biological functions. Not only do we come in contact with these chemicals when we handle these products, but these chemicals get ingested all the time especially because of microplastics (which obviously will contain traces of these chemicals.) The use of these chemicals is so ubiquitous that it's essentially impossible to avoid them, even if you tried. (You would need to move far from civilization and avoid most commercial products, and just life off the land.)
3) Obsession about hygiene has been steadily increasing.
Hygiene is one of these "the road to hell is paved with good intentions" things: It sounds extremely good on paper, but people are not taking enough into account its drawbacks and side-effects, even though many of them are quite well known. One of the best known and most famous side-effects of excessive hygiene is the proliferation of allergies, which rates have been on a steady raise for several decades now. (Of course this doesn't mean you should live like a pig. However, it does mean that you should stop worrying so much about dirt and pathogens in everything.)
Of course it's impossible to say if excessive hygiene can have an effect on testosterone levels and sperm counts, but who knows. Allergies have myriads of forms and extremely varied effects and symptoms. It's not just getting a rash or having joint pain.
4) Cultural changes in the last decades have and an effect on people's psychology and upbringing.
The effect that the brain has on the body cannot be underestimated. We tend to naturally think that the body just acts like it acts, and whatever we consciously think and believe has no effect on it. However, it's extraordinarily clear that's not the case, and your conscious thinking, your psychological state, can have a huge effect on how your body functions and what it does. This can be seen on how things like psychological stress, depression and placebos affect the body. It's not just imagination and subjective feelings: It has a real effect on the body, a real effect on what kind of hormones are produced and so on.
In the west our culture has been on a very aggressive decades-long campaign to effeminate men as much as possible. It would be naive to say this hasn't had any effect on how male bodies behave, how much hormones and sperm they produce.
5) The availability of pornography, especially to younger people, has sky-rocketed in the last couple of decades, especially in the last decade (due to the wide availability of the internet and smartphones).
This one might sound like just puritan conservative talk, but I believe there is actual merit in this idea. Not as in "pornography is sinful, we are being punished by God!!!", but in actual medical terms.
The brain seeks a balance on most things. Body temperature is very balanced, blood acidity is extremely balanced, the production of all kinds of hormones and other naturally-produced chemicals is balanced.
This balancing mechanism is, in fact, what makes eg. heroin have such a strong physical addiction: Heroin stimulates the same parts of the brain as dopamine, ie. it acts as if it were a huge surge of dopamine. The body produces naturally a certain amount of dopamine (for evolutionary reasons, which has to do with, effectively, "quieting down" pain receptors which are otherwise constantly sending pain signals). However, heroin makes the brain think that there's an over-production of dopamine, so it relatively quickly starts lowering its production in order to keep the balance. Keep taking heroin for long enough (and sometimes you don't even need to take it for that long), and the brain will permanently drop its"normal" dopamine production level. What this causes is that when you don't take heroin the body will not produce dopamine either (because the brain has dropped its production), causing extreme physical symptoms (eg. you might feel like you are literally burning in a fire).
It's not completely implausible that an excessive amount of pornography, especially at a younger age, may have a similar effect on testosterone production: The constant stimulus provided by pornography may trigger the brain to think that it's producing too much of the hormone, which may cause it, like with heroin, to lower what it consider the "normal" level of testosterone production. Continue this for long enough, especially when the brain is still developing, and the change may be permanent. If the brain grows up with a particular "normal" testosterone production level, it might never change it after it has stopped growing, so the lowering may be permanent and irreversible.
What makes most of the reasons above plausible is that testosterone levels and sperm count have not dropped by any significant amount in cultures where those things do not happen (such as most middle-eastern cultures).
Comments
Post a Comment