Fighting IF
It might be a man's world, but could his reproductive days be in decline? Exposures to pesticides, herbicides, industrial agents, tobacco, alcohol and metals - even mobile phone use - are being increasingly blamed for abnormal sperm and falls in sperm counts.
Australian and overseas biologists have long argued the male testis, DNA and sperm are under attack from environmental contaminants, and the end game could be the male sex-defining Y chromosome's destruction.
Counsellors trying to help couples conceive have been desperate to give would-be fathers more precise advice on chemicals to avoid and lifestyles to lead - but are now learning that in some cases the damage to men's fertility may have happened way back in their mother's womb.
The discovery has been made in the new science known as "epigenetics", which strongly suggests chemical damage is causing abnormal sperm and male infertility via a pregnant woman's exposure to contaminants, passing infertility not only to her son but successive sons - overturning old assumptions about biology and DNA.
fertility issues men's fertility abnormal sperm
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