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A new study published in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine may have found a connection between healthcare products and inactive sperm.
For the study, researchers gathered 315 men together and collected samples of their sperm and urine. The researchers simultaneously tested the samples on the quality of sperm while also checking the urine for traces of paraben.
Paraben are man-made chemicals found in personal health and grooming products. They are used as preservatives in the products, and the specific parabens being looked at were butylparaben, ethylparaben, isobutylparaben, methylparaben, and propylparaben.
By the end of the study researchers found an interesting relationship between the urine and the sperm. If there were high traces of paraben within the urine, there also seemed to be a lower quality of sperm within the men.
The ways that the sperm seemed to be affected was having a higher chance of being weirdly shaped, moving slowly, or even having a higher chance of being damaged from the molecular level.
This all can cause multiple problems for men. Men who engage in straight sex for the purpose of reproduction, whether you’re straight, bi, pan, or whatever else, could find problems with fertilization. And, the same could be said for gay men looking to use surrogacy as a route for having children.
In addition, the researchers think that the increased parabens can cause a fluxuation in men’s hormones. Next thing you know, a man could have too much testosterone flowing or perhaps the opposite effect with many other hormones in the body.
Right now, those are the only results from this one study and it is the only one of its kind and topic. As such, the researchers involved need to continue with more tests before they can completely confirm the connection and offer a solution.
Until then, look at your favorite personal health products like your soups, your toothpaste, your shampoos, your lotion, and so on. If you find butylparaben, ethylparaben, isobutylparaben, methylparaben, or propylparaben on the ingredients list, you might have a problem.
