For clarification this is a podcast summary where Dr. Shanna Swan talks with Joe Rogan. The podcast itself is at the bottom of the page.

Summary:
– The modern world is altering male and female reproductive development, threatening male sperm counts and thus also the human race.
– We’re surrounded my so many chemicals everyday and it’s playing a big part in interfering with our hormonal systems from oestrogen and testosterone to thyroid.
– Sperm count dropped, miscarriage rates increased and things like that are all going down 1% per year.
– These chemicals have been called endocrine disruptors and she studied a specific group called phthalates which affect testosterone. They mostly come from our food.
– They found that a baby in the neonatal ward will have as much phthalates in it’s urine as there are tubes attached to it because the tubes are soft squishy plastic. Now think about how much food we’re having with these kind of soft plastics. Milk bottles, packaging, cooking in microwavable plastic, straws etc.
– So the cycle goes and also goes into the mothers systems and into the womb.
– Different plastics are different so there are ‘safe’ plastics: So her saying is 4, 5, 1 and 2, all the rest are bad for you. All plastics should have a recycling code at the bottom of it.

4, 5, 1 and 2, all the rest are bad for you

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– Her biggest no no is food that is microwaved in plastic. Take it out, use ceramic or glass. (Find ceramic containers on Amazon #ads or alternatives on AliExpress)
– 2000 experiment with rats showed that it was only the males who were born different after phthalate exposure. Testosterone has to be released and a specific time and amount in an ideal situation. The taint/gooch/grundle has to be a specific size, called anogenital distance. Lots use this to determine the sex because this one differs 100% between genders. Now if the mother is exposed to phthalates, it will have ‘arrested’ development. Smaller penis, smaller taint size, etc. The collection of changes that happen is called Phthalate Syndrome.
– Phthalates are water-soluble so they go into the urine.
– She measured the amounts in mothers, then in children and found that the mothers levels did alter the genitals in the boys.
– Then she got students to measure sperm samples and taint size. Men with less than 2 inches would be 7 times less fertile or in the sub-fertile range. In a separate study people found that infertile men had even smaller distances.
– The petrochemical industry is connected to this and it started in the 50s but it shot up so fast it’s hard to tell where it became a health issue.
– The problem is that people are not talking about sperm counts going down. More and more people are having trouble conceiving so more and more people are starting to wake up. It’s easier to talk about other health issues other than reproductive health.
– Smoking is not good for sperm counts. If a mother smokes the son can lose 40% of his sperm count. If the father smokes 60 – 70 days before the sperm is being created, it’s reduced by the same amount. A man who smoke reduces his count by 20% but once he stops he’s back to normal. In utero exposure seems to be the worst.
– The man with the low sperm count is also going to die younger. Joe talks about severe depression and the connection to low testosterone.
– Higher levels of phthalates in women were connected to lower levels of sexual satisfaction. Erectile dysfunction has increased and increasingly younger men are getting testosterone replacement schemes.
– Back in 1973 was the start of the trend and the average was 99 million sperm per ml. In 2011, it dropped to 47 million sperm per ml over all Western countries. So more than 50% decline. If we’re going this way it really needs to flatten out soon because a mother being exposed with a baby in womb is exposing 2 more generations. Her song and the germ cells in this sperm which will be the next generation.
– The good news is that experiments show you can clean up the mess in 3 generations if you clean up the environment around those generations.
– In Europe there is a program called Reach which regulates chemicals and it has to be proven that there are no health threats if the new chemicals are introduced.
– Another studying she’s still doing and it’s not as concrete but it is about mothers exposed to Roundup/Glyphosate has daughters with longer taint distances meaning more masculine.
– Other chemicals that are affecting us are like coatings on Teflon pans, coatings on water repellent jackets (PFC – perfluorinated compound), coatings on paper, phenols and bisphenols. These have reproductive effects and are connected to foetal growth.
– People got upset about BPA so they took out BPA but then BPF’s were introduced so it’ll say BPA free but has another bad chemical. They call it whack-a-mole.
– She recommends looking for plastic in your kitchen and bathroom and try replace them with glasses and ceramics. You may still get phthalates from the processing of food even if it’s bought in a glass jar but you’re minimising your part in the home. The cow will still be milked with a plastic tube.
– She wants to do a study called Farm to Fork where that start and end product are studied and then the steps in between to see where and how much is being introduced and to find out how to keep them out.
– Neither women or men are to be ‘blamed’ for infertility.
– Man-made chemicals are not great for our reproductive systems. She’s done numerous experiments that prove this again and again. Chlorination by-products (she studied home tap water) and solvents are linked to miscarriages.
– Men living near farms and exposed to pesticides had 50% more sperm that were not moving or dead. She connects it to the runoff water. So imagine the highly exposed workers. Their wives couldn’t have babies and turned out the men had zero sperm. Things were fix and in 4-5 months the sperm returned. Adult exposure can be reversed.
– Talk about regenerative farming vs. thousands of acres of unnatural corn.
– The Jizz Quiz (Instagram needed): It’s 6 questions about your fertility IQ
– She’s going to make a documentary. Another quiz. Joe tries to debunk Sperm Wars but Dr. Swan doesn’t know herself. Joe reads more sperm facts. They finally find no evidence for Sperm Wars so the guy just wrote the book without fact checking.
– In some places a 20 year old woman is less fertile than her grandmother was at 35.
– Worldwide fertility has dropped more than 50% in the last 50 years.
– Your kitchen and bathroom are the riskiest places for your fertility as discussed.
– Amphibians and other animals are started to be born ambiguously sexual.
– US Fish and Environment Services have a set of requirements to determine endangered species. Humans fit that. 1 in 5 criteria need to be met. 1 – destructive environment. 2 – inadequacy of existing regulatory mechanisms, 3 – man-made factors are needed to continue existence.
– The 1% effect. Increase in miscarriages and cancers, declines in sperm count and testosterone are all occurring at the same rate, 1% per year.
– Even though it all seem dreary, Dr. Swan has hope because we made a vaccine in a year, we find solutions quick.
– Use the hashtag #CountMeIn, spread the word!