DANGEROUS chemicals produced by burning industrial waste could be behind the supposed decline in modern man鈥檚 sperm count, if you are Italian at least.
Paolo Mocarelli at the University of Milano-Bicocca in Italy and his colleagues found that exposure to dioxins in childhood can cause permanent damage to the male reproductive system.
Mocarelli studied the sperm counts of 135 men who were exposed to dioxins generated by the explosion of a chemicals factory in Seveso, Italy, in 1976. The team calculated the precise level of dioxin exposure using blood samples taken at the time, says Mocarelli.
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Men who were under 9 years old at the time, now have sperm counts that are 50 per cent lower than males in a nearby area not exposed to dioxins (Environmental Health Perspective, ).
鈥淭his evidence shows that dioxins act as an endocrine disrupter in childhood,鈥� says Mocarelli. He suggests that dioxins affect androgens, a group of hormones which are the primary influence on sperm cell concentration and motility in children.
In the 1970s and 1980s small incinerators in western countries produced much higher levels of dioxins than they do today. This may be responsible in part for the reported, yet disputed, decrease in sperm quality in the past 50 years.
