Are we being c-blocked by our sunblock?
Let me tell you, science can often be our friend. But science can also place us — and our little male swimmers — between a rock and a hard place.
Just when I get used to the fact that summer in the Philippines has become hotter than a Nevada nuclear test site or the surface of a George Foreman Outdoor Grill, I’m told by leading in-family dermatologists that I’d better start applying heavy-duty sunscreen on a daily basis to avoid becoming a crispy critter.
This amounts to closing the barn door after the barn animals have been lit on fire with flamethrowers and are stampeding madly for the exits, but still: I started to slather on the stuff regularly to avoid becoming a charcoal briquette. Then — boom! — science slapped me with a cold fish.
It seems studies done in Copenhagen (no stranger to cold fish) show that sunscreen is one of the culprits in male sperm count dropping worldwide by 25 percent over the past half a century.
Let me say that again: applying sunscreen can KILL. OFF. SPERM. OMG.
That, at least, was the result of studies presented at the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology’s annual meeting in Lisbon. There, Dr. Niels Jorgensen, consultant at the Department of Growth and Reproduction at Rigshospitalet, argued that ordinary bathroom chemicals were probably leaving us shortchanged in the reproduction department.
Put another way, we are being cblocked by our sunblock.
The studies lasted for 15 years and sampled the sperm production of males who were young and fertile in the 1940s, up through present-day dudes.
And guess what? Those dudes who lived through World War II, who experienced all kinds of sacrifices and made up the Greatest Generation? They carried around way more sack than we do. This is clear to anybody, really, who casually compares the movie actors of the ‘40s to today’s crop. 1940s: Clark Gable, Gregory Peck, Humphrey Bogart, Gary Cooper. Then pivot to today’s assortment of man- children: James Franco, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Tobey Maguire, Jesse Eisenberg. See any difference? Some women complain that today’s males are too pampered, self-involved, perpetually adolescent. Now we know what to blame: it’s the SPF.
Dr. Jorgensen made it clear that our metrosexual ways are coming with unexpected tradeoffs: “Modern life is having an impact because we are exposed to so many chemicals and we don’t know what they do,” he said. The worst part: chemicals in sunscreen and other cosmetics now commonly applied by guys could be seeping through the dermis — and choking those little swimmers to death.
His 15-year study covered some 5,000 Danish men (average age 19) and found that only 25 percent of the men had “good quality” sperm.
Fifteen percent of the tested testes had “very poor quality” sperm, which could lead to trips to the fertility clinic if they ever want to get Denmark’s population booming again. (Apparently not.)
Dr. Jorgensen cited evidence from animal studies that suggests many common household chemicals block the production of testosterone — key in helping to manufacture our little swimmers. Sunscreen was the main culprit, the proverbial Colonel with the Candlestick in the Library who did in our boys with blunt-force trauma.
But the study leads me to wonder about the fairness of the methodology. Apparently, to get these results they drowned the collected sperm in a tub of sunscreen. Then they noticed — surprise! — that the sperm had a bit of trouble surviving, let along swimming through that muck.
Well, hell, you could do that experiment with any household product, such as peanut butter. I’m sure sperm would have trouble navigating through a jar of Peter Pan Crunchy Honey Roast, too.
Still, science offered us yet another in a long series of buzzkills: “We are advised to protect ourselves with these sunblocks but it seems when you go to the laboratory and test some of these chemicals they can interfere with the sperm function,” Jorgensen added. “If I was to advise my own family, I would say don’t use it.” So here we males are, once again in a real pickle thanks to science. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. Out of the frying pan into the fire. It’s like Republicans having to choose between Donald Trump or Ted Cruz. Do we expose ourselves to the radiation-like levels of extreme weather on a daily basis, and just get used to our skin adopting the texture of a fine Corinthian leather baked in a pizza oven, or do we try to protect our remaining billions of functioning sperm at all costs — even at the cost of vanity? Gary Cooper never had to weigh such an option, I’m sure.
For myself, the prospect of carrying around an extra hundred million thriving sperm in my remaining years no longer carries a great reproductive imperative. In other words, I’m not planning on raising any more children in the foreseeable future. I do know that we males continue to manufacture sperm throughout most of our lives; there are billions and billions, as Carl Sagan might say — not a fixed number, as there seems to be for brain cells. All I can say with certainty is that, at this point in life, I probably have more sperm cells than brain cells. Though even this ratio is bound to reverse at some point.
So until more scientific data come in? I’m suiting up for the hot weather. I’m slathering on the Peter Pan Crunchy Honey Roast. No conclusive studies on that yet.
Some women complain that today’s males are too pampered, self-involved, perpetually adolescent. Now we know what to blame: it’s the SPF.