Is this a good study, or is it unconvincing?

[yog55677]

TL;DR

A study has found some worrying evidence, but is it enough to make a conclusion from?

A study has found that cell phones are detrimental to male sperm quality (Lower sperm motility and sperm concentration). It’s original goal was to determine if image content has a effect on sperm quality, but accidentally discovered that men who said they kept their phone in their pocket had worse sperm quality than those who didn’t have a phone in their pocket.

As far as I can tell, from my limited knowledge, the study isn’t very flawed. What I do know is that they used 52 men, which doesn’t seem like a lot. Another possible flaw is in regard to how they took sperm samples. Sperm parameters can vary amongst healthy individuals, the WHO recommends taking at least 2 samples to determine fertility. This study took one sample from all 52 men, then asked them if they wanted to participate the second time around and only 25 men agreed. So, they did take more than one sample but only for 25 men. I’m not sure, but this doesn’t seem like very good methodology.

I was wondering if certain lifestyle factors that tend to be associated with phone use where causing the infertility, not the phones themselves, but the study had a very extensive questionnaire and adjusted for many different factors from bathing habits to diet, so I don’t think that the study can be flawed in this are.

What do you guys think? Is this something that we should be worried about and change our habits over, or is it scientifically limited and no cause for alarm until bigger and better studies conform their findings?

 

[gleem]

I just scanned the paper and did not see a control group i.e. that did not carry a cell phone the subjects being their own control. As far as I know, the only physical factor that a cell phone can possibly affect sperm motility is its SAR (specific absorption rate of the em radiation emanating from the phone) which increases tissue temperature. Since temperature is a significant factor I would have thought that its measurement should have been included in the study. Another factor that seems to have been neglected is bicycle riding which may be particularly important for students. And then there are only 25 subjects to split into those affected and those not. So I think is study is a bit flawed.

Disclaimer: I am biased and distrust most human health effect studies on grounds that it is extremely difficult or impossible to include or correct for all relevant confounding factors at least accurately.EDIT: I have more faith in this study https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/6838666/

 

[yog55677]

I just scanned the paper and did not see a control group i.e. that did not carry a cell phone the subjects being their own control. As far as I know, the only physical factor that a cell phone can possibly affect sperm motility is its SAR (specific absorption rate of the em radiation emanating from the phone) which increases tissue temperature. Since temperature is a significant factor I would have thought that its measurement should have been included in the study. Another factor that seems to have been neglected is bicycle riding which may be particularly important for students. And then there are only 25 subjects to split into those affected and those not. So I think is study is a bit flawed.

Disclaimer: I am biased and distrust most human health effect studies on grounds that it is extremely difficult or impossible to include or correct for all relevant confounding factors at least accurately.

Thank you! Top scientists have said that studies like this need to take more than one sample, and they only done that with 25 men. So I guess they’d have to split the numbers down even more, and split it between 25 men. Also, the study was done in 2004, only a year after 3G came out and years before 4G. So it’s not a ‘modern’ study. Would you say that means we shouldn't avoid using a phone over this study?

 

[berkeman]

Since the OP has left us, this thread can be closed now.