Mobile phones may cause infertility in men

October 27th, 2006

The effect of mobile phone on our health has been a debatable issue ever since it became a popular means of voice based communication.

Now a study has found some disturbing findings, especially for men. The American Society for Reproductive Medicine study indicates that men who spend more than four hours a day talking on their mobiles have 25% lower sperm count than those who never used the gadget in their life.

Equally disturbing is the finding that those with lower sperm counts also had the poorest quality of fundamental units of reproduction and transference of characters from one generation to another.

The current study has been reported to be the biggest and best designed investigation. It is a follow up on an earlier study which linked the use of mobile phones with poor quality sperm.

The current investigation was done across continents with involvement of researchers from Cleaveland and New Orleans in the US and Mumbai in India, and involved 361 men undergoing checks at a fertility clinic.

The men were divided into four groups. Those who never used a mobile, 40, those who used the phone for less than two hours a day, 107, those using the gadget for two hours, 100 and those who used their mobiles for more than four hours a day, 114.

Appreciable differences of sperm potency counts, viability, morphology and motility were observed in the different groups of men. The more a group of men used mobile phones, greater was the degradation in sperm quality.

DR Ashok Aggarwal, director of Reproductive Research Centre at the Cleveland Clinic, who led the research says, “it is too early to advise men trying to start a family about whether they should limit their use of mobile”.

No technology or convenience comes without its negative repercussions. Once a convenience, mobile phones have become an integral part of our lives and its growing popularity is virtually unstoppable.

Yoga comes to the rescue of those men who suffer or fear loss of fertility because of deteriorating environmental or such conditions. Among the breathing exercises, called pranayama under the traditional regime of well being and healing, kapalbharti is useful in fighting reproductive disorders. The double-nostril exercise involves rhythmic exhalations, one every second, accompanied by inward contractions of stomach muscles and involuntary inhalations.

Entry Filed under: Health Issues