Subject: Sperm counts/hormone disruptions/EMF????????
Date: Mon, 24 Nov 1997 061330 -0600 (CST)
From: "Roy L. Beavers" <rbeavers@mail.llion.org>
To: emfguru@hotmail.com
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Hi everybody:
I wish to offer only one comment on the following message; Looking
at the totality of all the EMF research, the one aspect of our human
physiology which seems to be most consistently impacted by EMF exposure
is the hormone systems. The strongest evidence, to date, has had to do
with the pineal gland and its production of melatonin. Guru (and a
number of others) have often wondered out loud: is that because ...
_melatonin is where we have been searching_!!!!
Almost no research effort has been invested in possible disruption (by
EMF) of serotonin, estrogen, testosterone, or others of the critical
hormone systems.....
I think you will find the (Reuters) news report below of considerable
interest.....
Cheerio.......
Roy Beavers (EMFguru)
rbeavers@llion.org..............http://www.feb.se/EMF-L/EMF-L.html
................................It is better to light a single candle ...
than to curse the darkness...............................................
12:31 AM ET 11/24/97
Report confirms fears - men are losing their sperm
(Release at 7 a.m. EST)
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent
WASHINGTON4 (Reuters) - Modern living is hitting men right
where it hurts the most, with sperm counts falling more quickly
than anyone thought, U.S. researchers said Monday.
Experts who set out to dispel fears of falling sperm counts
said they found to their dismay that sperm counts are even lower
than had been reported.
``I think this study will change the debate about sperm
decline from 'if' to 'why','' said Shanna Swan, chief of the
reproductive epidemiology section at the California Department
of Health Services, who led the study.
The National Academy of Sciences asked Swan to write the
definitive report on the issue, which has been bubbling since
1992, when Niels Skakkebaek, Elisabeth Carlsen and colleagues at
Copenhagen University reported that sperm counts were falling
around the world.
Their announcement caused a flurry of debate, and studies
published since have shown conflicting results. British research
found that men born in the 1970s had 25 percent fewer sperm than
those born in the 1950s, while Harry Fisch of New York's
Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center found men there had high
sperm counts, with no evidence of a decline,
Swan's group re-analyzed the 61 published studies on sperm
count that Carlsen's team originally used.
``Overall, in Europe and the United States there is a strong
and significant decline,'' she told Reuters in an interview.
The National Institutes of Health agreed. ``Their analysis
of data collected from 1938 to 1990 indicates that sperm
densities in the United States have exhibited an average annual
decrease of 1.5 million sperm per milliliter of collected
sample, or about 1.5 percent per year,'' the NIH said in a
statement.
``Those in European countries have declined at about twice
that rate (3.1 percent per year).''
Swan said she approached the task expecting to disprove the
theory. ``When I first read Carlsen I was at first, frankly,
suspicious because of its simplicity,'' she said.
But after careful analysis, she changed her mind.
Swan has started her own analysis of sperm counts from 1934
to 1996. ``I have done enough work to be sure the bottom line is
not going to change,'' she said.
What is the cause? From early on, the researchers have
agreed on where to point the finger.
``Once we rule out differences such as smoking, temperature,
age and ethnicity, what we will have left are environmental
factors,'' Swan said.
She, and many other experts, blame persistent organic
pollutants (POPs), which range from pesticides such as DDT to
inndustrial chemicals like PCBs.
All have been shown to act like hormones such as estrogens,
which can either bring out feminine characteristics or work to
counteract male hormones. They are found in soil, oceans and in
food, and they last a very long time.
Swan said fertility was obviously not the big issue, as
babies were still being born. ``However, sperm count is a
marker, a red flag ... for testicular cancer.'' she said.
``We would expect wide-ranging effects. You cannot affect
something like the reproductive system without affecting other
systems in the body.''
A recent report by the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention (CDC) found a doubling in the numbers of cases of
hypospadias, a birth defect involving the penis. The normal
opening at the end of a boy's penis is somewhere else on the
organ.
Childhood cancer rates are rising by about 1 percent a year
in the United States, and the Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA) has set up an office that is studying whether chemicals
are to blame.
Swan said she would also like to study a similarly
disturbing trend in girls -- early puberty. She cited one study,
published in the journal Pediatrics, that found 40 percent of
black girls examined in 218 doctor's offices had breast
development by age 8.
^REUTERS@
References
1. http://www.infobeat.com/main/cgi/main_merc.cgi?refurl=www.fullstory.com
.-
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Reprinted with permission of Roy Beavers, http://www.feb.se/EMF-L/EMF-L.html