Cell phones can affect sperm quality?!

2008 September 21

tags: fertility, gadgets, Health, mobile-phones, Technology

by jhay | with 1,562 views

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This is something that has become somewhat a great concern for me because I have always put my cell phone inside my pocket because:

I don’t want to hand-carry it all the time
I don’t like its weight dangling around my neck
It’s concealed from the eyes of thieves and other baddies on the street
Belt pouches are for old men
I have a habit of cramming stuff in my pockets

But what is that something? Well this study that says Cell Phone Exposure May Affect Sperm Quality In Men. It goes on to say:

By keeping cell phones in their pockets, men are exposing their testicles to damaging radiofrequency electromagnetic waves. Even the Bluetooth devices, which are commonly used by many people because of health or safety concerns, may not always be safe due to the proximity of the phones and the exposure that they are causing, researchers say.
Lead researcher Ashok Agarwal, head of the andrology laboratory and the director of the Center for Reproductive Medicine at the Glickman Urologoical and Kidney Institute at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio collected semen samples from 32 men and divided each man’s sample into two parts.
They placed half of the semen samples 2.5 centimeters away from a 850 MHz frequency cell phone in talk mode for one hour, the same distance between the testes and the trouser pockets.
Semen exposed to radiofrequency electromagnetic waves emitted from cell phones had higher levels of damaging free radicals, lower sperm motility, lower sperm viability and possibly greater oxidative stress than the non-exposed semen, the study shows.

Remember how the theory that cell phones can cause brain damage because of its radio transmitter has been watered down for years and largely ignored by the public? Well this news is something I wouldn’t ignore so easily. Especially since it concerns my ability to pass on my genes to the next generation. Weird but, I would rather have kids of my own than to suffer brain tumors because hey, I want to be a father some day. Besides, what will my girlfriend and future wife would say if indeed my ’seeds’ were zapped useless by my cell phone?!

Though the researchers behind the study said that further studies are needed to validate their initial findings, it would be safe and wise for us ordinary men to start re-thinking how we carry our mobile phones around. Perhaps its time to invest in a good sling around my neck to carry my cell phone in instead of my pockets.