All over the world, sperm counts in men are declining. for decades drop this has been alternately blamed pesticidesheavy metals, obesity and possibly microplastic. Even more alarming, the decline appears to be accelerating: One male fertility founder estimates that sperm counts have fallen by 50 to 60 percent over the past four decades.
“‘Spermpocalypse’ is one way to put it, ‘spermageddon’ is another, and ‘zero sperm count’ is my preferred term,” said Khaled Kteili, CEO of male fertility startup Legacy. LuckBrainstorm Health Conference in Dana Point, California on Monday.
Call it what you want – it’s exhilarating. “If you follow this trend, it is not only accelerating, but it is very clearly moving towards zero sperm counts,” Kteili said. And it’s possible that in a few decades we could live in a world where people can’t conceive naturally, he added.
However, the global total of $30 billion fertility industry Mostly targeted at women, with only a small portion targeting men, according to Grand View Research. This is also reflected in the social understanding of infertility, which is generally considered a women’s problem.
“We actually call the male partner the ‘silent partner,’” said Dr. Brian Levine, founding partner and practice director of CCRM Fertility in New York City. According to him, in a typical scenario, a woman having trouble conceiving undergoes a series of tests, receives a clear health certificate on each of them and comes to him confused – at which point he tells them to get their boyfriend tested or husband. . “And the question always arises: ‘Why?'” he added. “We have an education problem here.”
What most people don’t realize, Dr. Levine says, is that only one-third of the time a couple can’t conceive is a woman’s problem. Another third of cases are a male problem, and another third are both. Posterity Health co-founder and CEO Pamela Pure agreed, noting that half of the cases involve a male factor issue.
On the other hand, Dr. Neel Shah, chief medical officer of the Maven Clinic, is not necessarily a “zero sperm count” user. Although birth rates are falling around the world, he believes it is partly a sociological phenomenon. “We talk about sex, but we don’t talk about fertility,” Shah said. Men struggling with infertility deserve more compassion than they receive, he added.
Kteili mentioned a time when he was giving a presentation to a group of Navy SEALs, and it was only at the end of the conversation that they realized there was nothing to joke about. “We often say sperm is funny, until it isn’t,” he said.
“This is a sensitive topic, especially because sperm is socially linked to ideas of masculinity,” Kteili said. However, he suggested that men wondering if they are affected should get a sperm test or freeze their sperm sooner rather than later.
When an audience member asked how men best take care of their fertility, Kteili didn’t hesitate: “Freeze it, freeze it now,” he said.