The Hidden Culprit Behind Declining Birth Rates
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 4 มิ.ย. 2024
- Think falling fertility rates are just about expensive housing and changing priorities? Think again. We're not the only species struggling to reproduce. Mice, birds, elephants, whales - even farm animals - are facing infertility issues, while human sperm count has dropped 52% since 1973.
So what's the cause?
Watch to find out.
Citations:
academic.oup.com/humupd/artic...
doi.org/10.1093/toxsci/kfae060
#Infertility #spermcount #microplastics #science - วิทยาศาสตร์และเทคโนโลยี
This may be the reason humanity needs to take on the plastic and oil issues
I mean, this is cool and all.... but in the case of humans (generally) the inability to buy a home, pay for child care, afford medical bills or hell, even afford food is the major issue
Not arguing with you on this… though I’m a doctor and not a sociologist/economist, so there are probably better people out there to provide input on the social reasons behind the decline. I’m only clarifying the biological reasons here.
Bit what about to future? Micro plastic is getting more and more. That may cause that fertility will drop so low that it gets very hard or almost impossible to make children natural. The plastic might be the main cause and problem in only few decades
I have an economics background and it's actually an inverse correlation to wealth. People in developed economies have less children, likewise for people who earn more within countries (all). Material concerns do not put people off having children as the poorest sections of almost any society has the highest fertility rates. People also work less than ever so this too is not an explanation. The best explanations I've seen revolve around coupling dynamics (the entertainment of being a couple having been impacted by media, and economics favouring dual income - but this is not unlike a pre-industrial society, which did have more children).
Thus I believe the explanation is sociological about how relationships work today most fundamentally and the emotional value a child provides to the parents.
Even with the lower sperm count, people can physically still have children. They just can’t sue to the financial cost. They would also be able to avoid micro plastics if companies cared (or were legally required to care) about our health and safety. So again, the issue goes back to economics. Micro plastics are merely a result of the former.
Microplastics might be a factor, definitely.
But some of the reports of several other species decreasing fertility have hypotheses attached to them with more explanatory power (habitat destruction, climate change, disruption of reproductive behaviors). There are also species that had their average fertility improve substantially simce 1970s.
And while there are interesting correlations, like countries with high proportion of their diet being seafood being disproportionately affected by reduced birth rates, correlation is not causation.
What is also important to note is that economic development is mathematically still a stronger correlation, and a lot of data points actually contradict the micropastic hypothesis. For example, some of the countries with the highest relative microplastic pollution are also the countries with some of the highest birth rates, like Malaysia, Indonesia, Ghana.
Also, microplastics are far from the only factor with plausible biochemical mechanisms to influence fertility that affects us more than the previous generations.
Certain food additives, heavy metals, non-plastic forever chemicals are just some, not even touching on behavioural changes that are much less studied than the chemical ones.
Overall this topic is very early in the research process and is very complex. We do, however, seemingly know enough to suggest micro plastics just can't be the ONLY factor.
PS. Also sorry for my English. It's not my first/second/third language.
don't apologize for your English.
you made a very compelling point
I think pollution in general (the broad spectrum of contaminants) is the culprit
Really well thought out and well put response, much appreciated 👍
Fertility and birth rate a VERY different, one is biological and the other sociological
Beg to differ, fertility rates will definitely affect birth rates.
It’s natures way of saying “Staaahp! Yer killing me!” We should just take heed.
it's reasonable to assume mciroplastics affect fertility given what we know about oil-derived chemicals and puberty (in girls at least), but it'll be pretty hard to establish a link between fertility and microplastics when every organism has mircoplastics in them
maybe once they've re-tested samples with microplastics concentration, they'll be able to find results that can be properly evaluated
Birth rates are not declining in Africa. Population growth there is quite robust.
That’s not very scientific. Your conclusion is invalid, at the very least it needs a connection between one, micro plastics in sperm, to lower birth rate, and the sample size in a pool of 8 billion people is startlingly small. 🤦🏻♀️😂😂
There are *no* altruistic reasons to have children.
Except to keep the species going.
@@Drutzie The species doesn't deserve to keep going.
@@txlyons2937 I feel sorry for you. You are apparently a very miserable person.
I can't have children due to the lifestyle I lived in my past, no ones fault but my own.... I'm reaping what I sown
Adoption is a great choice if you believe you are ready to raise kids, what matters is family, not genes, and plenty of kids that are already alive and struggling with their childhood need a good home with loving parents. Infertility won't ruin the chances to build a family, if anything there won't be a need to go through pregnancy which can be excruciating mentally, physically and even dehumanizing
Lol
@@octoroidd Thankyou for taking the time to write this message. I really appreciate the kind words you have said, and yes I totally agree with you. Thankyou and God bless you🙌🏼✝️
@@user-pn8ze3vy2x Please don't make the same mistake I did. God bless you and don't be ignorant like me!
This might be a separate issue, but we know that for most humans, they're not trying and failing to have kids. They're choosing not to have them.
If everyone could stop voting in fascists thatll probably help. Thanks
If everyone stopped voting for fascists, I'm sure we'd be able to sort out 90% of the world's problems.
watching this guy talk is like a natural contraceptive
That’s OK. I think I can live with that.
You only comment things like this when you’re miserable with your own life. Because you literally could’ve just kept it moving and swiped to the next video but you HAD to try and invite company into your misery huh
I can’t really trust someone with bad teeth
So? There was sperm in every testes too, right? You should explain how microplastics would effect the producing tissue to make a claim like that.
We compared the sperm from the past with the sperm from now. The only differences between 'past sperm' and 'nowadays sperm' was the amount of sperm and the amount of plastic. Because the amount of plastic is the only thing that changed, it is probably the cause for the dropping amount of sperm. We did not do enough studies to know exactly how plastic might influence the amount of sperm but we know that there seems to be a connection. We got a lot of theory's. None of them are proved to be true. Google a bit about it .
Sure! This was a 60 second video, so not nearly enough time to cover everything. I'll be publishing long-form videos in the future where I talk about the exact mechanisms involved.