Low On Sperm? Watch Your Cell Phone
Friday October 27, 2006
Researchers from New Orleans found out that men who use a cell phone have about 23 percent less sperms per milliliter (of semen, I assume) than those who don't use a cell phone. Sperms are also less vigorous and less "normal", though they did not clarify what they meant with "normal".
source
This is not the first time cell phone use is associated with sperm damage. In the summer of 2004, a Hungarian scientist published similar results, according to which "carrying a cell phone in hip pockets or a holster could cut sperm count by nearly 30 percent". But did they take all factors into account? Perhaps men with cell phone have a different lifestyle than men without phones...
Comments
That relationship between sperm count and cell phones is known as a CORRELATION. It simply means that 2 measures vary together in some way; like stock prices and hemlines.
The only thing that you can reasonably say about a correlation is “Hmm. That’s interesting.” By no stretch of the imagination can you say that it means one thing cause the changes you see in the other.
I would bet that this is another version of the “boxers versus briefs” underwear.
The former keep the testicles at a higher temperature, and sperm count is well known to go down
(The life style variable alluded to.)
All sorts of factors, stress being a notable one, can tend to decrease sperm count and mobility. It’s logical to conclude that men with cell phones live busier, more stressed lives on average.
It’s probably not that cell phones cause a decrease in sperm count, but rather that cell phone use is correlated or coincides with other aspects of a lifestyle that tends to include factors that reduce the sperm.
The extremely flawed (and unfortunately widely publicized) study mentioned is a textbook example of fallacious logic involving the unfounded assumption that correlation implies causation.