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Fat and Infertile: New Study Raises Alarm Over Link Between Obesity and Low Sperm Count

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Boys who are overweight in their adolescence face a higher risk of fertility issues later in adulthood, according to a new study in the European Journal of Endocrinology.

In April, a team of Italian researchers published their findings on a study of 268 children and adolescents between the ages of roughly 2 to 18. Scientists examined the relationship between weight, testicular volume, and insulin resistance. Male minors who were overweight or obese, they found, had lower testicular volume (TV), which is associated with lower sperm count.

“Childhood and adolescence represent an important time widow for testicular development,” researchers reported. “Therefore, these phases should be considered a critical moment for the prevention of andrological diseases that may arise later in life.”

The team concluded that “children and adolescents with overweight/obesity, hyperinsulinemia, and insulin resistance have lower TVs than their age-matched controls.” In other words, children and adolescents with excess weight and an abnormal insulin response were found to have lower testicular volume and thus likely lower sperm production.

The study’s findings contribute to the overwhelming research that points to obesity as the root cause of the West’s health crisis. Falling testosterone levels, a primary hormone for metabolic function, might even be a primary driver behind obesity in men today. Male testosterone levels have plummeted by double digits since the 1980s and remain in steep decline as endocrine-disrupting chemicals saturate the environment. (Read more from “Fat and Infertile: New Study Raises Alarm Over Link Between Obesity and Low Sperm Count” HERE)

Photo credit: Flickr

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Study: Marriage Linked To Higher Fertility

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As society has moved further toward nontraditional unions, new research shows traditional marriage is linked to higher fertility rates while cohabitation and relationship instability is linked to lower fertility.

“Marriage and cohabitation are far from indistinguishable in a country often described as a second demographic transition forerunner,” the study out of Finland finds.

The cultural “retreat from marriage” has likely contributed to many societies falling below replacement fertility — about two children per woman — according to Institute for Family Studies senior fellow Dr. Laurie DeRose.

“Fewer enter marriage at all, and those who do marry typically do so later in life, often divorce, and either do not remarry or do not remarry quickly,” she wrote. “The retreat from marriage takes many adult years away from the normative context for childbearing.”

Despite the potential for a divorce and remarriage to increase one’s capacity to have more children — sometimes thought by population scientists to be an “engine for fertility” and a “silver lining” of the dissolution of the union — research shows that “the more common experience is for divorce to suppress childbearing.” (Read more from “Study: Marriage Linked To Higher Fertility” HERE)

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Study: Male Fertility Plummets 62% Worldwide, Is Accelerating

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The collapse in male fertility rates around the world is accelerating, according to journal Human Reproduction Update.

Sperm counts dropped by 62 percent in under 50 years — a decades-long trend that is picking up pace.

A low sperm count can contribute to adverse men’s health outcomes, including “testicular cancer, hormonal disruption and genital birth defects, as well as declines in female reproductive health.”

Hagai Levine, lead author of the study, called the issue a “crisis,” warning the steep decline could get to an irreversible point.

“We have a serious problem on our hands that, if not mitigated, could threaten humankind’s survival,” he added. (Read more from “Study: Male Fertility Plummets 62% Worldwide, Is Accelerating” HERE)

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American Fertility Rates Fall Well Below Replacement Rate

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By IF Studies. The United States just hit a 40-year low in its fertility rate, according to numbers just released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The 2017 provisional estimate of fertility for the entire U.S. indicates about 3.85 million births in 2017 and a total fertility rate of about 1.76 births per women. These are low numbers: births were as high as 4.31 million in 2007, and the total fertility rate was 2.08 kids back then. The United States has experienced a remarkable slump in fertility over the last several years, as I’ve explained elsewhere.

Since 2007, fertility has fallen the most for the youngest women, but in the last year, declines have set in for women in their 30s as well. Fertility declines increasingly seem to be about much more than just postponed fertility, or else these women must be planning to have some very fertile 40s.

At least through 2016, this trend appeared to be mostly driven by changes in marital status. Births to never-married women are down more than births to ever-married women: age-adjusted marital fertility is down 14% since 2007, while age-adjusted never-married fertility is down 21%, as of 2016. Preliminary data from several states suggest these trends are likely to continue in 2017. . .

That’s because the decline in fertility has been far greater among minorities than among non-Hispanic whites. If we take age-specific birth rates from the peak-fertility year of 2007 and apply them to each age cohort in 2008-2016, the most recent complete data, we can create a counterfactual scenario of how many babies would have been born if age-adjusted fertility rates had not fallen after 2007. From 2008 to 2016, the deficit turns out to be between 4.1 and 4.6 million missing babies: basically, an entire year’s worth or more of childbearing vanished. (Read more from “American Fertility Rates Fall Well Below Replacement Rate” HERE)

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Men in Their 30s Hit by Impotence Epidemic as Half Suffer from Erectile Dysfunction

By The Mirror. Half of men in their 30s struggle to get an erection, studies have shown.

Surprise polling reveals this age group is most likely to struggle keeping it up, with 49% blaming stress and 24% blaming boozing too much. . .

Nearly half (43%) of men aged 18-60 across the UK are suffering impotence, with four in ten men blaming stress, followed by tiredness (36%), anxiety (29%) and boozing too heavily (26%).

Researchers polled 2,000 men for Coop Pharmacy and found largest affected age group of men with erectile dysfunction is those in their thirties, with half (50%) reporting difficulties getting or maintaining an erection.

This compares to 42% in their 40s, 41% in their 50s, and 35% of under 30s. (Read more from “Men in Their 30s Hit by Impotence Epidemic as Half Suffer from Erectile Dysfunction” HERE)

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U.S. Fertility Rate Plummets to New Record Low

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The last year of the Obama administration saw the fertility rate fall to an all-time low.

According to recent data from the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), the U.S. fertility rate sank to a record low of 62.0 births per 1,000 women of reproductive age in 2016.

This was a slight decrease from the 2015 fertility rate which stood at 62.5. The downward trend is not showing signs of stopping either. According to NCHS preliminary estimates, fertility slumped even lower to 61.5 in the first quarter of 2017.

The U.S. birth rate—a slightly different measure of fertility—also fell among younger women, 15-29 years of age. A small increase in births among women 30 years of age and older was not enough to make up for the decline among younger women. (Read more from “U.S. Fertility Rate Plummets to New Record Low” HERE)

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IVF Baby Born Using New Genetic-Screening Process, Allows “Perfect” Embryos to be Selected

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Photo Credit: guardian.co.ukThe first IVF baby to be screened using a procedure that can read every letter of the human genome has been born in the US.

Connor Levy was born on 18 May after a Philadelphia couple had cells from their IVF embryos sent to specialists in Oxford, who checked them for genetic abnormalities. The process helped doctors at the couple’s fertility clinic in the US select embryos with the right number of chromosomes. These have a much higher chance of leading to a healthy baby.

The birth demonstrates how next-generation sequencing (NGS), which was developed to read whole genomes quickly and cheaply, is poised to transform the selection of embryos in IVF clinics. Though scientists only looked at chromosomes – the structures that hold genes – on this occasion, the falling cost of whole genome sequencing means doctors could soon read all the DNA of IVF embryos before choosing which to implant in the mother.

If doctors had a readout of an embryo’s whole genome, they could judge the chances of the child developing certain diseases, such as cancer, heart disease or Alzheimer’s.

Read more from this story HERE.

Sarah Palin on Fertility and the Syrian Civil War

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Photo Credit: Reuters

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin criticized the Obama administration’s decision to supply weapons to the rebels in the civil war in Syria today, arguing that the U.S. should “Let Allah sort it out” until there is a stronger leader in the White House.

“Militarily, where is our commander in chief? We’re talking now more new interventions. I say until we know what we’re doing, until we have a commander in chief who knows what he’s doing, well, let these radical Islamic countries who aren’t even respecting basic human rights, where both sides are slaughtering each other as they scream over an arbitrary red line, ‘Allah Akbar,’ I say until we have someone who knows what they’re doing, I say let Allah sort it out,” Palin said at the Faith and Freedom Coalition Conference…

Palin, speaking at the conclusion of the three-day Faith and Freedom Coalition Conference, also took a swipe at another speaker at the conservative forum, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who argued Friday that one of the reasons to support the Senate’s immigration reform plan is because “Immigrants are more fertile.”

“I think it’s kind of dangerous territory, territory to want to debate this whole one race’s fertility rate over another, and I say this from someone who’s kind of fertile herself,” Palin said. “I don’t think that’s where we want to go in deciding how will we incentivize the hardworking responsible families who want to live in the light, follow the law, become Americans, versus those whose very first act on our soil is to break the law? There are different ways that we can debate this.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Muslim nations’ fertility rates “have taken a steeper dive than any countries in history”

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Fertility rates of Muslim populations around the world have almost literally fallen off a cliff, so steep has been their decline. Policy makers at the UN and elsewhere have barely noticed this.

“There remains a widely perceived notion — still commonly held within intellectual, academic, and policy circles in the West and elsewhere — that ‘Muslim’ societies are especially resistant to embarking upon the path of demographic and familial change that has transformed population profiles in Europe, North America, and other ‘more developed’ areas,” write Nicholas Eberstadt and Apoorva Shah in the June 1 issue of Policy Review.

It is generally thought that Muslim fertility rates are growing by leaps and bounds. This has fed into the panic about growing Muslim influence, especially in Europe. While Eberstadt and Shah do not deal specifically with Muslims in Europe, they do point out that fertility rates have declined all over the Muslim world and that predominantly Muslim countries have taken a steeper dive than any countries in history.

Using data from the UN Population Division, which projects fertility rates for 190 countries, Eberstadt and Shah “appraise the magnitude of fertility declines in 48 of the world’s 49 identified Muslim-majority countries and territories.” The data show that “forty-eight Muslim-majority countries and territories witnessed fertility decline over the past three decades.”

When absolute fertility decline is examined, Eberstadt and Shah show “a drop of an estimated 2.6 births per woman between 1975 and 1980 and 2005 and 2010 — a markedly larger absolute decline than estimated for either the world as a whole (-1.3) or the less developed regions as a whole (-2.2) during those same years.” They point out that “Fully eighteen of these Muslim-majority places saw (total fertility rates) fall by three or more over those 30 years–with nine of them by four births per woman or more.”

Read more from this story HERE.