Male infertility increases due to the consumption of foods with pesticides that are spermicidal

2024-03-08 10:52:52

On many occasions we have discussed pesticides and other toxics used in feeding. And just yesterday we discussed the toxicity of cosmetics.

Of course, these products have active ingredients with very technical names, and today I am going to talk to you about them. nonoxynols. They are used as surfactants, and are found in everything from pesticides to hygiene products. And they are spermicides! That is, they affect the male fertility.

For about 20 years, a decrease in the number of sperm in European men. Various studies have shown that the number of sperm produced by Western men has decreased by approximately 50% from 1940 to 1990.

Furthermore, the concentration of sperm in semen and amount of semen in each ejaculation have also decreased over the last 50 years.

This decline in sperm numbers has been observed to have accelerated in recent years, with an average reduction of more than 1% per year between 1973 and 2018.

These findings have raised concern in the scientific community and led to debates about male fertility.

The causes of this decrease in sperm number are complex and may be related to environmental factorssuch as exposure to chemicals and pollution, as well as lifestyle and stress.

However, it is important to keep in mind that semen quality and male fertility do not only depend on the number of sperm, but also on other factors such as motility and morphology of the sperm.

And what role do nonoxynols play? such as nonoxynol-9, which are used as non-ionic surfactants in the formulation of pesticides and pesticides? These compounds are used as wetting agents and surfactants in agricultural products to improve the effectiveness of pesticides and facilitate their application.

That is, at the same time that it has a spermicidal effect, has use as a surfactant. In fact, that is the purpose of using it in mouthwashes, for example.

And a surfactant is used in a pesticide to reduce the surface tension of droplets of irrigation by spraying, allowing them to spread over a larger area of ​​the leaf of the plant that supposedly suffers from the pest. This improves the penetration of the active ingredient into the target plant.

Additionally, surfactants help the spray droplets adhere better to the plant in windy conditions. These compounds are water spreaders that facilitate the absorption of the pesticide, increasing its effectiveness and enhancing its performance.

Surfactants can be ionic, non-ionic or ambivalent, and their use has gained importance in agriculture due to their adjuvant properties to improve the absorption of molecules with herbicidal, insecticidal and fertilizer activity.

But of course, the plant “eats” them and we eat them, if we eat vegetables from plants treated in this way. And although the surfactant/spermicidal compound does not easily penetrate through the skin, it does so through ingestion.

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