By HoneyColony Staff
A new study raises concerns about the correlation between a declining sperm count among French men and their consumption of their homeland’s national beverage: wine. In 2012, a comprehensive study on French men’s sperm counts revealed a whopping 33-percent decline from 1989 to 2005.
The recent follow-up study, which involved 26,000 Frenchmen, maps the declining sperm counts by region in an effort to determine a correlation between wine-producing regions and the ongoing plunge. According to France’s The Local, “The drop the researchers uncovered was about 1.9 percent per year.… The concentration of sperm for a (35-year-old) man dropped, on average, from 73.6 million sperm (cells) per millimeter in 1989 to 49.9 (million sperm cells per millimeter) in 2005, the scientists found.”
Some of the steepest declines have been recorded in areas with high concentrations of agricultural workers. Bordeaux, the famous wine-producing region, is also one of the most effected regions. Researchers say the pesticides these workers are exposed to are known to disrupt men’s hormones—and sperm counts.
Read the full article here.
Related Articles:
