Are Cell Phones Causing Your Sperm Count to Drop?

[SF]

Researchers have found that cell phone signals can alter four essential features of fertile, grade A sperm: 1. Mobility -- How well they move; 2. Viability -- How tough they are; 3. Sperm count -- How many there are; 4. Morphology -- Proper composition.

In men who use cell phones, multiple studies have shown that at least one, and sometimes all four of these categories were impaired compared with the sperm of men not using cell phones at all, and the groups that clocked more hours on the phone had correspondingly worse results.

What's causing the damage? Theories vary. Many researchers suspect radio frequency (RF) energy, a form of electromagnetic (EM) energy necessary for making a call. EM waves are a common part of modern life and include technologies from radios to X-ray machines. The higher the EM energy emitted, though, the more damaging it can be. While cell phone RFs are considered low energy, young sperm cells are fragile and easily damaged, and thus may be sensitive to even low energy waves. Another possibility is that cell phone use impairs the brain's regulation of the hormones that control sperm production.

http://www.asylum.com/gallery/are-cell-phones-causing-your-sperm-count-to-drop/482586/

Does this make sense or is it nonsense?

 

[russ_watters]

That's a terribly written article. Yes, there have been studies that show a statistical association, but there is no known mechanism that could cause it: the speculations made in the article are just flat wrong and they don't cite their sources. It all sounds like idle speculation out of the author's head and he gets a lot of science wrong (such as the explanation of the EM spectrum).

What is more likely is that other factors not controlled for affected the results. Ie, higher cell phone use may be indicative of a higher stress job, which is a strong risk factor for low fertility.

 

[Proton Soup]

stress contributes, but it may be more than simply stress.

Another possibility is that cell phone use impairs the brain's regulation of the hormones that control sperm production.

assuming there were cause and effect, i think it'd be this. there was a study showing that cell phone use caused alteration in brain wave patterns.

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=mind-control-by-cell&page=2

the subjects remained awake twice as long after the phone transmitting in talk mode was shut off. Although the test subjects had been sleep-deprived the night before, they could not fall asleep for nearly one hour after the phone had been operating without their knowledge.

sleep deprivation affects testosterone levels and normal sleep is needed for normal secretion.

Sleep. 2007 Apr 1;30(4):427-32.Links
Association between sleep and morning testosterone levels in older men.
Penev PD.

Section of Endocrinology, Department of Medicine, The University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, USA. ppenev@medicine.bsd.uchicago.edu

STUDY OBJECTIVES: The circulating testosterone levels of healthy men decline with advancing age. This process is characterized by considerable inter-individual variability, the causes of which are of significant biological and clinical interest but remain poorly understood. Since sleep quantity and quality decrease with age, and experimentally-induced sleep loss in young adults results in hormonal changes similar to those that occur spontaneously in the course of aging, this study examined whether some of the variability in circulating testosterone levels of older men can be related to objective differences in their sleep. DESIGN: Observational study. SETTING: General community and university clinical research center. PARTICIPANTS: Twelve healthy men ages 64 to 74 years. INTERVENTIONS: Three morning blood samples were pooled for the measurement of total and free testosterone. In addition to overnight laboratory polysomnography, wrist activity monitoring for 6-9 days was used to determine the amount of nighttime sleep of the participants in everyday life settings. MEASUREMENTS AND RESULTS: The main outcome measures were total sleep time and morning testosterone levels. Sleep time in the laboratory was correlated with the usual amount of nighttime sleep at home (Pearson's r = 0.842; P = 0.001). Bivariate correlation and multiple linear regression analyses revealed that the amount of nighttime sleep measured by polysomnography was an independent predictor of the morning total (Beta 0.792, P = 0.017) and free (Beta 0.741, P = 0.029) testosterone levels of the subjects. CONCLUSIONS: Objectively measured differences in the amount of nighttime sleep are associated with a significant part of the variability in the morning testosterone levels of healthy older men.

PMID: 17520786 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

http://jcem.endojournals.org/cgi/content/full/86/3/1134

Recently, we have demonstrated that in normal men the nocturnal testosterone rise antedated the first rapid eye movement (REM) sleep episode by about 90 min and was correlated with REM latency. To further elucidate whether the diurnal testosterone rhythm is a sleep-related phenomenon or controlled by the circadian clock, we determined serum testosterone levels in 10 men during the ultrashort 7/13 sleep-wake cycle paradigm. Using this schedule, subjects experienced partial sleep deprivation and fragmented sleep for a 24-h period. Serum testosterone levels were determined every 20 min between 1900–0700 h with simultaneous sleep recordings during the 7-min sleep attempts. The results were compared with those obtained in men during continuous sleep. Although mean levels and area under the curve of testosterone were similar in both groups, fragmented sleep resulted in a significant delay in testosterone rise (03:24 h ± 1:13 vs. 22:35 h ± 0:22). During fragmented sleep, nocturnal testosterone rise was observed only in subjects who showed REM episodes (4/10). Our findings indicate that the sleep-related rise in serum testosterone levels is linked with the appearance of first REM sleep. Fragmented sleep disrupted the testosterone rhythm with a considerable attenuation of the nocturnal rise only in subjects who did not show REM sleep.

 

[russ_watters]

I'm curious if the speaker was active during those experiments.

 

[Proton Soup]

I'm curious if the speaker was active during those experiments.

i don't have access to the full article, but it says thermally-insulated and silent.

Neurosci Lett. 2007 Jun 21;421(1):82-6. Epub 2007 May 24.Click here to read Links
Mobile phone 'talk-mode' signal delays EEG-determined sleep onset.
Hung CS, Anderson C, Horne JA, McEvoy P.

Sleep Research Centre, Loughborough University, UK.

Mobile phones signals are pulse-modulated microwaves, and EEG studies suggest that the extremely low-frequency (ELF) pulse modulation has sleep effects. However, 'talk', 'listen' and 'standby' modes differ in the ELF (2, 8, and 217Hz) spectral components and specific absorption rates, but no sleep study has differentiated these modes. We used a GSM900 mobile phone controlled by a base-station simulator and a test SIM card to simulate these three specific modes, transmitted at 12.5% (23dBm) of maximum power. At weekly intervals, 10 healthy young adults, sleep restricted to 6h, were randomly and single-blind exposed to one of: talk, listen, standby and sham (nil signal) modes, for 30 min, at 13:30 h, whilst lying in a sound-proof, lit bedroom, with a thermally insulated silent phone beside the right ear. Bipolar EEGs were recorded continuously, and subjective ratings of sleepiness obtained every 3 min (before, during and after exposure). After exposure the phone and base-station were switched off, the bedroom darkened, and a 90 min sleep opportunity followed. We report on sleep onset using: (i) visually scored latency to onset of stage 2 sleep, (ii) EEG power spectral analysis. There was no condition effect for subjective sleepiness. Post-exposure, sleep latency after talk mode was markedly and significantly delayed beyond listen and sham modes. This condition effect over time was also quite evident in 1-4Hz EEG frontal power, which is a frequency range particularly sensitive to sleep onset. It is possible that 2, 8, 217Hz modulation may differentially affect sleep onset.

PMID: 17548154 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]