Laptops Not For The Male Lap...

Gents, is your laptop cooking your testicles?

Legitimate question in light of some recent studies.

The simple rationale here is that the hotter your testicles the lesser the quality of the sperm available. This research was recently published in the Journal of Fertility and Sterility. The study involved 29 men volunteering their scrotums so that the researchers could affix a thermometer.

It is probably not rocket science to understand that using a laptop on your lap will result in the temperature increasing in those regions where it sits. If your wondering, the research suggests that it only takes 10 to 15 minutes for the scrotum to overheat to a level that is unsafe. Although, according to the article that I read, the research is hardly definitive in the sense of how large the impact is on fertility.

I always new there was a reason why I used my laptop on a table.

Trivial Stuff -- More Factoids

Here are a few more factoids for the "did you know" file.

1. In the course of an average lifetime you will, while sleeping, eat 70 assorted insects and 10 spiders;

2. From the age of thirty, humans gradually begin to shrink (I am already nine years into my shrink -- and I am not sure that I can afford to shrink);

3. The juice inside a young coconut can be used as a substitute for blood plasma;

4. The youngest pope was eleven years old; and,

5. The largest cell in the human body is the female reproductive cell, the ovum. The smallest is the male sperm (this is why women will ultimately dominate the world :D).

Sperm Smuggling

A murderer has been able to smuggle his sperm out of jail and have it transported interstate and then inseminated into his girlfriend. The girlfriend has then become pregnant and given birth to a son. Are congratulations in order here?

The NSW prison security system at one particular jail obviously leaves a little to be desired. However, any security system is only as good as the people who work in it or run it, and in this case it seems that neither worked well. The jail cannot be identified according to reports. Nevertheless, word of mouth will probably see the identity of both the jail and murdered concerned revealed at some point.

This kind of breach usually sees heads roll, and this case has been no exception with three members of the prison management team being stood down. A doctor and nurse have also been stood down. It is alleged that the doctor and nurse were instrumental in the deed.

For those of you who are wondering, sperm can survive outside of the body for up to 48 hours if kept at body temperature. So, the actual smuggling of the sperm out of jail and keeping it viable is not so difficult if the security gods align in the right way. It seems that the gods aligned themselves in the right way for this murderer and his keen girlfriend.

Sperm Counts and Soy

I think I have found an excuse for why it took me more than five years to get my better half pregnant! A research study out of the Harvard School of Public Health at Harvard University is suggesting that the eating and drinking of products that contain a lot of soy or isoflavones has a negative impact on fertility in men. To all out there that do not understand what this means, then in lay person's terms more soy equals less sperm!

There have not been many studies into this, and this particular study is but the third to be completed. Nevertheless, the idea that there is a causal relationship between the eating of soy and the reduction in sperm is an interesting one. I need to get a copy of the study and have a look at who the subjects were. Indonesians for example eat a lot of soy-based products. Since I have been living here in Indonesia, soy has always been a staple and has always been present in just about every meal that I have had. I love the Indonesian forms of soy and regularly eat tahu and tempe.

It seems that soy contains isoflavones, an organic compound which acts like female hormones, which then appears to impact negatively on a man's ability to produce sperm. The science is that the isoflavones in soy are structurally similar in the chemical sense to estrogen and then serve to mimic the way estrogen acts in the human body.

The study involved 99 test subjects all who were involved in a relationship where there were difficulties in conceiving. There was an "inverse" association between soy intake and sperm concentration. This inverse association was distinguishable even after other factors such as age, abstinence, caffeine, BMI, and alcohol were taken out of the equation. The average man has a sperm count of between 80 and 120 million per millilitre whereas the soy consuming subjects had an average sperm count of just 41 million per millilitre.

I guess the next time I am contemplating getting into the baby making game then it is time to swear off the soy.