Decreasing sperm quality: a global problem?
Open Access
- 19 January 2010
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Springer Science and Business Media LLC in BMC Public Health
- Vol. 10 (1), 24
- https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-10-24
Abstract
Carlsen and coworkers (1992) reviewed 61 heterogeneous observational studies on semen quality published between 1938 and 1990. This review indicates that mean sperm density decreased significantly between 1940 and 1990. An extended meta-analysis with 101 studies confirmed a decline in sperm density for the period from 1934 to 1996 (2000). The key message of the meta-analyses is that sperm counts have decreased globally by about 50% over the past decades. This assessment has been questioned.Keywords
This publication has 35 references indexed in Scilit:
- Good Semen Quality and Life Expectancy: A Cohort Study of 43,277 MenAmerican Journal of Epidemiology, 2009
- Cryptorchidism as Part of the Testicular Dysgenesis Syndrome: The Environmental ConnectionEndocrine development, 2009
- Semen quality in sub‐fertile range for a significant proportion of young men from the general German population: a co‐ordinated, controlled study of 791 men from Hamburg and LeipzigInternational Journal of Andrology, 2008
- Adverse trends in male reproductive health: we may have reached a crucial ‘tipping point’International Journal of Andrology, 2008
- The question of declining sperm density revisited: an analysis of 101 studies published 1934-1996.Environmental Health Perspectives, 2000
- Have sperm densities declined? A reanalysis of global trend data.Environmental Health Perspectives, 1997
- Identifying environmental risk to male reproductive function by occupational sperm studies: logistics and design options.Occupational and Environmental Medicine, 1996
- Testicular cancer in nine northern european countriesInternational Journal of Cancer, 1994
- Semen quality of Finnish men.BMJ, 1993
- Evidence for decreasing quality of semen during past 50 years.BMJ, 1992