Male users of cellular phones should think twice before chatting too much on the phone, as prolonged mobile use may damage the sperm

Oct 24, 2006 14:04 GMT  ·  By

According to a recent report issued by American scientists, the sperm of men who spend a lot of time talking on the mobile phone becomes damaged, as it considerably declines in number, quality and ability to swim. A team of scientists at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine at Case Western Reserve University in Ohio showed that an increased use of mobile phones causes a major drop in the motility and viability of a man's sperm.

Speaking at the American Society for Reproductive Medicine conference in New Orleans where the team presented the findings of the research, Ashok Agarwal stated: "There was a significant decrease in the most important measures of sperm health and that should definitely be reflected in a decrease in fertility, which is seen worldwide." He also added: "People use mobile phones without thinking twice what the consequences might be. It is just like using a toothbrush, but mobiles could be having a devastating effect on fertility. It still has to be proved, but it could be having a huge impact because mobiles are so much part of our lives."

The study was conducted on 361 men who attended the fertility clinic and asked them about how long they used mobile phones. After finding this out, researchers divided subjects into 4 groups depending on the time spent by volunteers talking on their cellular phones daily: those who did not use a mobile phone, those who used it for less than 2 hours daily, those who used it between 2 to 4 hours daily and those who talked on the mobile phone for more than 4 hours per day.

Overall results proved that the more a subject used his mobile phone, the more damaged the count, viability, motility and shape of his sperm were. For instance, if a man talks for more than 4 hours on his mobile phone, then there is a drop of about 30% in the quality of his sperm. Mobile phones have such a negative impact on sperm because the devices damage one's DNA and the cells which produce testosterone.

Commenting on the results of the study, Allan Pacey, senior lecturer in Andrology at Sheffield University stated that the idea of the study is very interesting, but there are also many flaws in the way it was carried out: "This is a good quality study, but I don't think it tackles the issue. If you're using your phone for four hours a day, presumably it is out of your pocket for longer. That raises a big question: how is it that testicular damage is supposed to occur?

If you are holding it up to your head to speak a lot, it makes no sense it is having a direct effect on your testes. Maybe people who use a phone for four hours a day spend more time sitting in cars, which could mean there is a heat issue. It could be they are more stressed, or more sedentary and sit about eating junk food getting fat. Those seem to be better explanations than a phone causing the damage at such a great distance."