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Sperm Count Zero and Plastic

Men are doomed. Everybody knows this. We're obviously all doomed, the women too, everybody in general, just a waiting game until one or another of the stupid things our stupid species is up to finally gets us. 

The male of the species dies younger than the female—about five years on average. Divide a population into groups by birth year, and by the time each cohort reaches 85, there are two women left for every man alive. In fact, the male wins every age class: Baby boys die more often than baby girls; little boys die more often than little girls; teenage boys; young men; middle-aged men. Death champions across the board.

Researchers from Hebrew University and Mount Sinai medical school published a study showing that sperm counts in the U.S., Europe, Australia, and New Zealand have fallen by more than 50 percent over the past four decades. (They judged data from the rest of the world to be insufficient to draw conclusions from, but there are studies suggesting that the trend could be worldwide.) That is to say: We are producing half the sperm our grandfathers did. We are half as fertile.

The Hebrew University/Mount Sinai paper was a meta-analysis by a team of epidemiologists, clinicians, and researchers that culled data from 185 studies, which examined semen from almost 43,000 men. It showed that the human race is apparently on a trend line toward becoming unable to reproduce itself. Sperm counts went from 99 million sperm per milliliter of semen in 1973 to 47 million per milliliter in 2011, and the decline has been accelerating. Would 40 more years—or fewer—bring us all the way to zero?

And though lower sperm counts probably have led to a small decrease in the number of children being conceived, that decline has been masked by sociological changes driving birth rates down even faster: People in the developed world are choosing to have fewer children, and they are having them later.

Almost all the scientists I talked to stressed that not only were low sperm counts alarming for what they said about the reproductive future of the species—they were also a warning of a much larger set of health problems facing men. In this view, sperm production is a canary in the coal mine of male bodies: We know, for instance, that men with poor semen quality have a higher mortality rate and are more likely to have diabetes, cancer, and cardiovascular disease than fertile men.

Testosterone levels have also dropped precipitously, with effects beginning in uterus and extending into adulthood. One of the most significant markers of an organism's sex is something called anogenital distance (AGD)—the measurement between the anus and the genitals. Male AGD is typically twice the length of female, a much more dramatic difference than height or weight or musculature. Lower testosterone leads to a shorter AGD, and a measurement lower than the median correlates to a man being seven times as likely to be subfertile and gives him a greater likelihood of having undescended testicles, testicular tumors, and a smaller penis. “What you are seeing in a number of systems, other developmental systems, is that the sex differences are shrinking," Swan told me. Men are producing less sperm. They're also becoming less male.

"Here in Denmark, there is an epidemic of infertility," he said. “More than 20 percent of Danish men do not father children."

So what was causing this disruption? To say there is only a single answer might be an overstatement—stress, smoking, and obesity, for example, all depress sperm counts—but there are fewer and fewer critics of the following theory: The industrial revolution happened. And the oil industry happened. And 20th-century chemistry happened. In short, humans started ingesting a whole host of compounds that affected our hormones—including, most crucially, estrogen and testosterone.

Anna-Maria Andersson, a biologist whose research has focused on declining testosterone levels. "There has been a chemical revolution going on starting from the beginning of the 19th century, maybe even a bit before and upwards and exploding after the Second World War, when hundreds of new chemicals came onto the market within a very short time frame." Suddenly a vast array of chemicals were entering our bloodstream, ones that no human body had ever had to deal with. The chemical revolution gave us some wonderful things: new medicines, new food sources, faster and cheaper mass production of all sorts of necessary products. 

When a chemical affects your hormones, it's called an endocrine disruptor. And it turns out that many of the compounds used to make plastic soft and flexible (like phthalates) or to make them harder and stronger (like Bisphenol A, or BPA) are consummate endocrine disruptors. Phthalates and BPA, for example, mimic estrogen in the bloodstream. If you're a man with a lot of phthalates in his system, you'll produce less testosterone and fewer sperm. If exposed to phthalates in uterus, a male fetus's reproductive system itself will be altered: He will develop to be less male.

Women with raised levels of phthalates in their urine during pregnancy were significantly more likely to have sons with shorter anogenital distance as well as shorter penis length and smaller testes. “When the [fetus's] testicles start making testosterone, which is about week eight of pregnancy, they make a little less,that's the nub of this whole story. So phthalates decrease testosterone. The testicles then do not produce proper testosterone, and the anogenital distance is shorter."

The problem is that these chemicals are everywhere. BPA can be found in water bottles and food containers and sales receipts. Phthalates are even more common: They are in the coatings of pills and nutritional supplements; they're used in gelling agents, lubricants, binders, emulsifying agents, and suspending agents. Not to mention medical devices, detergents and packaging, paint and modeling clay, pharmaceuticals and textiles and sex toys and nail polish and liquid soap and hair spray. They are used in tubing that processes food, so you'll find them in milk, yogurt, sauces, soups, and even, in small amounts, in eggs, fruits, vegetables, pasta, noodles, rice, and water. The CDC determined that just about everyone in the United States has measurable levels of phthalates in his or her body—they're unavoidable.

What's more, there is evidence that the effect of these endocrine disruptors increases over generations, due to something called epigenetic inheritance. Normally, acquired traits—like, say, a sperm count lowered by obesity—aren't passed down from father to son. But some chemicals, including phthalates and BPA, can change the way genes are expressed without altering the underlying genetic code, and that change is inheritable. Your father passes along his low sperm count to you, and your sperm count goes even lower after you're exposed to endocrine disruptors. That's part of the reason there's been no leveling off even after 40 years of declining sperm counts—the baseline keeps dropping.

Can anything be done? Over the past 20 years, there have been occasional attempts to limit the number of endocrine disruptors in circulation, but inevitably the fixes are insubstantial: one chemical removed in favor of another, which eventually turns out to have its own dangers. That was the case with BPA, which was partly replaced by Bisphenol S, which might be even worse for you. The chemical industry, unsurprisingly, has been resistant to the notion that the billions of dollars of revenue these products represent might also represent terrible damage to the human body, and have often followed the model of Big Tobacco and Big Oil—fighting regulation with lobbyists and funding their own studies that suggest their products are harmless.

Drinking bottles leach chemicals

https://www.forbrukerradet.no/side/drinking-bottles-leach-chemicals


Analyses of selected organic contaminants and metals in drinking bottles

Vinyl shower curtains, cable, wire, and flooring are examples of flexible PVC products that can contain phthalates. Plastic beverage bottles sold in the United States are made from a type of plastic known as polyethylene terephthalate (PET).
Οι φλαθικοί εστέρες ή φθαλικές ενώσεις είναι μία κατηγορία χημικών ενώσεων που χρησιμοποιούνται κυρίως ως πλαστικοποιητές και πρωτίστως για την μετατροπή του πολυχλωριούχου βινυλίου (PVC) από σκληρό σε ευλύγιστο πλαστικό. Η έκθεση του ανθρώπου στους φθαλικούς εστέρες μπορεί να γίνει μέσω της κατανάλωσης τροφίμων και υγρών που έχουν έρθει σε επαφή με πλαστικά δοχεία.


Κοινοί ενδοκρινικοί διαταράκτες είναι η δισφαινόλη Α (BPA) και οι φθαλικές ενώσεις. Οι ουσίες αυτές βρίσκονται σε πληθώρα προϊόντων, όπως συσκευασίες φαγητού, πλαστικά είδη και καλλυντικά


Τόσο η δισφαινόλη Α όσο και οι φθαλικές ενώσεις θεωρούνται ενδοκρινικοί διαταράκτες. Ενδοκρινικοί διαταράκτες ονομάζονται οι ουσίες που «μιμούνται» τις ανθρώπινες ορμόνες, άρα μπορεί να αποσυντονίσουν τη λειτουργία του ορμονικού συστήματος.


Εκτός από τις χρόνιες παθήσεις, τα υψηλά επίπεδα φθαλικών ενώσεων συνδέονται και με αυξημένα επίπεδα βιοδεικτών φλεγμονής στο σώμα


Όπως διαπίστωσαν, όσο υψηλότερη ήταν η συγκέντρωση φθαλατών στα ούρα των μητέρων, τόσο αυξανόταν ο κίνδυνος αλλεργικού άσθματος στα παιδιά τους.


Οι γυναίκες που κατά τη διάρκεια της κύησης εκτίθενται σε φθαλικές ενώσεις διατρέχουν αυξημένο κίνδυνο απόκτησης παιδιού με χαμηλό δείκτη νοημοσύνης.


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phthalates (φλαθικοί εστέρες ή φθαλικές ενώσεις / φθαλικού διαιθυλίου) ( χημικές ενώσεις DnBP / DiBP / DEHP / DINP / MnBP / MiBP / MBzP / MEP )


Study Suggests BPA-Free Plastics Are Just as Harmful to Health


Replacement bisphenols are structural BPA variants with similar biological effects

Common bisphenols are germline toxicants that induce meiotic effects in both sexes

Genotoxic bisphenol exposure effects may persist for several generations in males

Environmental contaminants can undermine science by affecting data and conclusions


Published in Current Biology


ref - https://science.slashdot.org/story/18/09/14/2232213/study-suggests-bpa-free-plastics-are-just-as-harmful-to-health

Κάποια πλαστικά χρειάζονται 450 χρόνια για να διασπαστούν. Κάθε χρόνο μόνο στη Βρετανία παράγονται 170 εκατ. τόνοι απορριμμάτων, μεγάλο μέρος των οποίων προέρχεται από τις συσκευασίες τροφίμων. Μόνο το ένα τρίτο των πλαστικών συσκευασιών ανακυκλώνεται. (src_GR   src_ENG)


Coca-Cola, PepsiCo και Nestle ο πιο συνηθισμένος τύπος πλαστικού που βρέθηκε ήταν το πολυστυρένιο, το οποίο βρίσκεται σε συσκευασίες και ποτήρια καφέ, ακολουθούμενα στενά από το τερεφθαλικό πολυαιθυλένιο, που χρησιμοποιείται σε φιάλες και δοχεία. src

Your Poop Is Probably Full of Plastic


The pilot study tested eight subjects from eight different countries: Austria, Italy, Finland, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland, Russia, and the UK. Each maintained a food diary the week before donating their stools, which they deposited in glass jars, wrapped in biohazard bags, and shipped in cardboard boxes.

Every participant's poop tested positive for plastics, from :
  • polyethylene (commonly found in plastic bags)
  • polypropylene (bottle caps)
  • polyvinyl chloride (the "PVC" in PVC pipe)

In fact, of the ten types of plastic that the researchers screened for, nine were detected. On average, the researchers turned up 20 particles of microplastic per quarter pound of poop.

Their findings raise many questions, chief among them being: How did the plastic get in the poop, and is it harmful?

The small number of study participants and the sheer number of ways a person could ingest microplastics make the first question tough to answer. "Everywhere we look for microplastics we find them" says Stephanie Wright

It's also tough to say how harmful the microplastics are to humans, because no studies on microplastic toxicity in humans have been performed. Animal studies have shown that microparticles can infiltrate an affected critter's bloodstream, lymphatic system, and perhaps their liver, all while collecting in their guts with potentially harmful consequences for their organs, intestines, and hormone regulation.

What the study does suggest is that microplastics, which have already infiltrated the world's oceans and many of its organisms, appear to have infiltrated our insides, as well.

Since BPA-free became trendy, manufacturers went on a plastic-developing spree, creating more variations than scientists can keep track of: BPS, BPF, BPAF, BPZ, BPP, BHPF, and the list goes on. They all have “BP” in their names because they share the same basic chemical structure of a bisphenol. Each new version has only slight differences, as if swapping a blue Lego block for a red one.


Scientists have a term to describe this analogous chemical swapping: regrettable substitutes. And the issue isn't limited to BPA. Many groups of compounds are suffering from the problem of too-similar replacements : 

  • flame retardants (used in furniture, vehicles, and electronics)
  • phthalates (used in cosmetics, personal care products, adhesives, plastics, and pharmaceuticals)
  • polyfluoroalkyl substances (used in nonstick products like teflon)


https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2018/09/news-BPA-free-plastic-safety-chemicals-health/


https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/planetorplastic/

The researchers plumbed the depths of the Mariana Trench in the western Pacific Ocean, near Challenger Deep, the lowest place on the face of the planet. They found the highest levels of microplastics yet found in the open ocean, compared with surveys from elsewhere in the Pacific, Atlantic and Arctic oceans.

Polyester was the most common plastic in the sediments and polyethylene terephthalate, used for bottles and clothing, was most frequent in water samples. (src)

Το 93% των ταμειακών αποδείξεων περιέχουν

-Δισφαινόλη Α (BPA)

-Δισφαινόλη S (BPS)

δυο επικίνδυνες χημικές ουσίες που συνδέονται με την υπογονιμότητα, το διαβήτη, την παχυσαρκία ακόμα και τον καρκίνο.

Μέλη του οργανισμού κρούουν τον κώδωνα του κινδύνου τονίζοντας πως η BPA μπορεί να προκαλέσει διαταραχή στο ενδοκρινικό σύστημα με επικίνδυνες συνέπειες για την ανθρώπινη υγεία.

Η BPA συναντάται σε διάφορα προϊόντα καθημερινής χρήσης όπως

  • πλαστικά τάπερ/μπολ
  • σελοφάν
  • μπουκάλια νερού
  • στην επένδυση της συσκευασίας των κονσερβοποιημένων τροφίμων και ποτών
  • στα cd
  • σε οδοντιατρικά υλικά για σφραγίσματα
  • σε κράνη μοτοσυκλετών και άλλα προϊόντα. (src)

Micro-Plastics Found In Human Feces For The First Time Ever

https://truththeory.com/2019/01/26/micro-plastics-found-in-human-feces-for-the-first-time-ever/

Everest - βιοδιασπώμενα καλαμάκια από εδώ και πέρα.

http://www.fortunegreece.com/article/telos-sta-plastika-kalamakia-vazoun-ta-everest/



Τα βιοδιασπώμενα καλαμάκια είναι φιλικά προς το περιβάλλον, καθώς έχουν ως βασικό συστατικό το PLA (βιοδιασπάσιμος πολυεστέρας που παράγεται από φυτικό άμυλο), το οποίο παράγεται από ανανεώσιμες φυτικές πρώτες ύλες, όπως το άμυλο καλαμποκιού και ζαχαροκάλαμου. Είναι βιοδιασπώμενα και κομποστοποιήσιμα, δηλαδή υπό συνθήκες κομποστοποίησης διασπώνται με τη βοήθεια μικροοργανισμών. Συνεπώς, κατά την απόρριψή τους δεν συμβάλλουν στα απόβλητα μη ανανεώσιμων πρώτων υλών, όπως το πλαστικό καλαμάκι. Τα βιοδιασπώμενα καλαμάκια δεν χρειάζεται να ανακυκλωθούν, αφού αποσυντίθενται όπως και οποιοδήποτε άλλο οργανικό απόρριμμα, όπως π.χ. τα υπολείμματα φαγητού. Στην ιδανική περίπτωση που τοποθετούνται σε κομποστοποιητή, ο χρόνος διάσπασής τους είναι 8 εβδομάδες, μετά από τις οποίες μετατρέπονται σε λίπασμα.



The four categories of particularly concerning chemicals include

  • pesticides, which can contaminate our produce;
  • phthalates, which are used in cosmetics and personal care products and also in many kinds of food packaging;
  • bisphenols, which are in the lining of aluminum cans;
  • flame retardants used in electronics, furniture and mattresses.


He suggested avoiding canned food consumption, along with foods that are highly packaged or processed, and in particular avoiding plastic bottles or containers marked on the bottom with 3, 6 or 7.

Plastics marked with a 3, he said, are worrisome for phthalates, which inhibit male sex hormones and disrupt metabolism.

A number 6 denotes styrene, which is a known carcinogen. P

lastics marked with 7 contain bisphenol, which in the lab has been shown to be related to obesity.


Dr. Trasande pointed to a recent study in JAMA Internal Medicine. In a group of more than 44,000 French adults 45 and older, a 10 percent increase in what is called “ultraprocessed food” was associated with a 14 percent higher risk of death from all causes. (Ultraprocessed foods are industrial products with many additives.)


https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/01/well/family/how-to-minimize-exposures-to-hormone-disrupters.html

Η Γαλλία είναι ο μεγαλύτερος παραγωγός πλαστικών αποβλήτων στη Μεσόγειο


https://www.newsbeast.gr/environment/arthro/5002215/i-gallia-einai-o-megalyteros-paragogos-plastikon-apovliton-sti-mesogeio


The average person eats at least 50,000 particles of microplastic a year and breathes in a similar quantity, according to the first study to estimate human ingestion of plastic pollution.

The health impacts of ingesting microplastic are unknown, but they could release toxic substances. Some pieces are small enough to penetrate human tissues, where they could trigger immune reactions.

Adults eat about 50,000 microplastic particles a year.

Bottled water containing 22 times more microplastic than tap water on average. A person who only drank bottled water would consume 130,000 particles per year from that source alone

Scientists do not know what happens when microplastics are inhaled, but the new study speculates that 'most inhaled particles will be ingested'.

'Removing single-use plastic from your life and supporting companies that are moving away from plastic packaging is going to have a non-trivial impact,' Cox said. 'The facts are simple. We are producing a lot of plastic and it is ending up in the ecosystems, which we are a part of.'



90% of plastic polluting our oceans comes from just 10 rivers


By analyzing the waste found in the rivers and surrounding landscape, researchers were able to estimate that just 10 river systems carry 90% of the plastic that ends up in the ocean.

Eight of them are in Asia: the Yangtze; Indus; Yellow; Hai He; Ganges; Pearl; Amur; Mekong; and two in Africa – the Nile and the Niger.





Japan once sent a 1.5m tonnes of plastic waste to China every year until Beijing banned the imports in 2017, and is now redirecting it to countries in Southeast Asia that are poorly equipped to handle and process the waste, exposing people to environmental and public health problems.

Determined not to become Asia’s plastic dumping ground, countries such as Malaysia and the Philippines are now turning back the shipments. As a result, plastic waste is building up in Japanese warehouses, and incinerators are at full capacity.


https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jun/27/japans-plastic-problem-tokyo-spearheads-push-at-g20-to-tackle-waste



It's raining plastic (Colorado Front Range)

Plastics were identified in more than 90 percent of the samples. 

Even if we waved a magic wand and stopped using plastic, it’s unclear how long plastic would continue to circulate through our rivers waters systems.

Animals and humans consume microplastics via water and food, and we likely breathe in micro- and nanoplastic particles in the air, though scientists have yet to understand the health effects. Microplastics can also attract and attach to heavy metals like mercury and other hazardous chemicals, as well as toxic bacteria. “Plastic particles from furniture and carpets could contain flame retardants that are toxic to humans,”


Because we are all are exposed to hundreds of synthetic chemicals as soon as we’re born, it’s difficult to say how much longer we’d live if we weren’t exposed. We may never understand all the linkages between plastics and health.


https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/aug/12/raining-plastic-colorado-usgs-microplastics



https://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2019/1048/ofr20191048.pdf


Plastic particles falling out of sky with snow in Arctic

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-49295051


Evidence suggests microplastics in water pose ‘minimal health risk’ 

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-49430038



What’s recyclable, what becomes trash — and why

https://apps.npr.org/plastics-recycling/

91% of plastic isn't recycled. Since the widespread use of plastic in the 1950s, an estimated 8.3 billion metric tons has been produced. Of this, 9% was recycled, 12% was incinerated, and 79% accumulated in landfills or the natural environment

Ο όμιλος Unilever, του οποίου «το πλαστικό αποτύπωμα» είναι περίπου 700.000 τόνοι κατ’ έτος.


https://www.fortunegreece.com/article/i-unilever-mioni-sto-miso-ti-chrisi-protogenous-plastikou/



PFAS. Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances are a group of about 4,700 chemicals that make carpets and upholstery stain-resistant and help firefighters douse burning oil and gas. Used on packaging products.

BPA, or bisphenol-A, is a chemical that mimics estrogen and a component of polycarbonate plastics. In 1992, a Stanford University researcher accidentally discovered that BPA can migrate from a plastic container into its contents, such as food or water. src

Most Plastic Products Release Estrogenic Chemicals: A Potential Health Problem That Can Be Solved
Touching receipts absorbs large amounts of BPA, a known endocrine disruptor, into your bloodstream

EFSA - FAQ: phthalates in plastic food contact materials

A whopping 91% of plastic isn't recycled

Shocking amount of plastic bottles cover seafloor of Xiaoliuqiu Island, Taiwan

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2017/07/plastic-produced-recycling-waste-ocean-trash-debris-environment/


Scientists sound alarm on plastic pollution

In January 2018, China stopped accepting most plastic recyclables from Western nations. Within days, there was no hiding just how much plastic nations were producing and consuming. Piles of plastic sprung up in Britain, Europe, Canada, the United States, and elsewhere. Other Eastern nations began banning the import of plastic waste. Governments worldwide are now scrambling for solutions to mitigate the growing problem of plastic pollution. https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-09/asu-ssa091720.php


More than 14m tonnes of plastic believed to be at the bottom of the ocean

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/oct/06/more-than-14m-tonnes-of-plastic-believed-to-be-at-the-bottom-of-the-ocean


Recycling was a lie

https://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/the-passionate-eye/recycling-was-a-lie-a-big-lie-to-sell-more-plastic-industry-experts-say-1.5735618


Bioplastics no safer than other plastics

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-10/nuos-bns102320.php


Κάθε χρόνο 230.000 τόνοι πλαστικών καταλήγουν στη Μεσόγειο

https://www.fortunegreece.com/article/kathe-chrono-230-000-toni-plastikon-kataligoun-sti-mesogio-i-chores-diarrois/

Αίγυπτος (περίπου 74.000 τόνοι/έτος),

Ιταλία (34.000 τόνοι/έτος)

Τουρκία (24.000 τόνοι/έτος)



Plasticenta: First evidence of microplastics in human placenta

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160412020322297

Phthalates Threaten Humanity’s Ability to Reproduce

https://theintercept.com/2021/01/24/toxic-chemicals-human-sexuality-shanna-swan/

The Hidden Health Hazards Of Plug-In Air Fresheners

One of the primary concerns health experts have about plug-in air fresheners is their wide-spread use of phthalates. According to a study conducted by the Natural Resources Defence Council (NRDC), 86% of air fresheners tested contained phthalates. Phthalates, which are also found in many

  • plastics
  • aerosol sprays
  • paints
  • pesticides
  • cosmetics
  • fragrances

are notoriously disruptive to the body. As the NRDC reported in their research, “Most phthalates are well known to interfere with production of the male hormone testosterone, and have been associated with reproductive abnormalities”. Phthalates are on the State of California’s list of toxic substances “known to cause birth defects or reproductive harm”. The NRDC also warns that airborne phthalates can cause allergic symptoms and asthma. Even trace amounts of phthalates can accumulate to cause these harmful side-effects.

https://www.indoordoctor.com/health-hazards-plug-air-fresheners/

BPA and BPS, two common plasticizers found in everyday items such as water bottles and food packaging, impair communication between neurons in the brain.

https://neurosciencenews.com/plasticizers-brain-damage-18243/


Chemical giants hid dangers of ‘forever chemicals’ in food packaging


Chemical giants DuPont and Daikin knew the dangers of a PFAS compound widely used in food packaging since 2010, but hid them from the public and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), company studies obtained by the Guardian reveal.

The chemicals, called 6:2 FTOH, are now linked to a range of serious health issues, and Americans are still being exposed to them in greaseproof pizza boxes, carryout containers, fast-food wrappers, and paperboard packaging.

The companies initially told the FDA that the compounds were safer and less likely to accumulate in humans than older types of PFAS, also known as “forever chemicals” and submitted internal studies to support that claim.

But Daikin withheld a 2009 study that indicated toxicity to lab rats’ livers and kidneys, while DuPont in 2012 did not alert the FDA or public to new internal data that indicated that the chemical stays in animals’ bodies for much longer than initially thought.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/may/12/chemical-giants-hid-dangers-pfas-forever-chemicals-food-packaging-dupont

More than one-third of ocean plastic inputs come from the Philippines

https://ourworldindata.org/ocean-plastics