Researchers have been exploring a male birth control pill, but with the exception of condoms, vasectomies or coitus interuptus – each with varying success rates and not necessarily halal depending on religious leanings – birth control for men is still limited.  A new study may be changing that. Goodbye unplanned pregnancies, hello ultrasound testes ‘zapper.’

It may not be painful and offers potentially better results with greater flexibility than current contraception options for men. Warning: Do not try this at home, with your laptop or other source of radiation exposure.

From Time Magazine:

James Tsuruta, an assistant professor of pediatrics at University of North Carolina School of Medicine, and his colleagues report in the journal Reproductive Biology and Endocrinology that commonly used doses of ultrasound can lower rats’ sperm concentrations to 3 million per milliliter of semen.

“When we treated the rats in the study, it only took two weeks to shut down a process that is essential to the survival of any species,” says Tsuruta. “Males produce millions of sperm every day. So it’s a very, very robust system. To be able to turn that off — we are really excited to learn how this actually works.”

In the study, the rats’ testes were exposed to high frequency ultrasound at 3 MHz for 15 minutes each, two days apart. The sessions were enough to kill the existing sperm in the testes and stop the development of additional sperm.

Additional research needs to include follow up for long term health effects including determining if the process is reversible for men who hope to become fathers. “We need to do more studies to be sure that a man can use this over and over again, and that when he does decide to father children, there is no problem at all,” Tsuruta is quoted as saying.

Low sperm count in men is anything less than 20 million sperm per milliliter of semen. Globally, sperm counts have been dropping and account for a significant portion of male-related infertility problems in couples trying to conceive. A recent study in Israel found a 40% reduction in sperm.

Environmental toxins are often cited as one contributing factor for male fertility challenges.

:: photo by Smoobs

Related Men’s Sexual Health News:

Link Between Unhealthy Sperm and WiFi Use

Exposure to Toxins Permanently Changes DNA, Offspring for Generations

Israeli Sperm Counts Drop a Whopping 40 Percent

Can a Male Birth Control Save the Environment?

Tinamarie is a regular contributor to Greenprophet.com. She also blogs at www.tinamariebernard.com.

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Falconry is a time-honored tradition in the Gulf, but like more recent sports such as race-car driving and rugby, it is a male-dominated sport. So when the Katara cultural village in Qatar recently announced the launch of the world’s first female falconry association, both men and women issued ridiculed the move.

Women and hunting don’t go together

HE Sheikh Joan bin Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani is hosting the 3rd Qatar International Falconry and Hunting celebrations at the Sabkha Marmi Sealine in Doha, Qatar. Festivities conclude tomorrow, but not without a controversial bang.

Today Katara formally announced the inauguration of the new all-women venture, which will include conferences and competitions designed at preserving the country’s falconry heritage.

But many people argue that women and hunting don’t go together and never have, Gulf News reports.

Women and falcons against tradition

“This is against our traditions, and engaging in this exclusively male sport will make people scoff at us,” a Facebook user wrote, quoted by Al Rayah – an Arabic daily in Qatar. “It is a waste of public funds and our women are going to behave like men,” said another.

These protests came in response to the idea that in order to engage in falconry, women would have to spend days in the desert (instead of the kitchen?)

Hessa Al Meftah, the head of public relations at the Qatar Foundation for the Protection of Women and Children, told the paper that creating a female falconry association is “laughable.” “It has always been known since time immemorial that falconry is for men only,” she told Al Rayah.

“Our grandmothers have been involved with men in almost everything, but history does not record a single case of a woman engaged in falconry,” she added.

Women have better things to do than falconry

Social activist Leena Al Dafie told the daily that women have better interests than falconry and that more time should be spent protecting Qatar’s society and traditions.

Our own Green Sheikh recently honored the United Arab Emirates’ former president Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al-Nahyan who loved falconry for the role it played in his country’s rich cultural history. Can this legacy – traced to ancient Bedouins who relied on the birds of prey to help them hunt – withstand the introduction of women?

:: Gulf News

More on women in the Middle East:

The Garbage Women of Turkey Turn Garbage Into Trendsetting Handbags

First Arab Woman Ever to Win Nobel Peace Prize

Women are Aroused by Cucumbers and Carrots According to a Muslim Cleric

The post Gulf people ridicule female falconry association appeared first on Green Prophet.

Infertility is a family affair. In the Middle East, the matter is often more than a medical concern. Larger families are the norm and in certain communities (for example, the more religious), a sign of honor and prestige. Couples trying to conceive without success must rule out male infertility as one of the culprits.

Male infertility can be a result of several factors including low sperm count, sperm that are immotile (don’t swim properly to reach the female egg) or sperm with altered DNA (DNA fragmentation).  Successful fertilization depends on sperm being able to reach and penetrate the egg, but globally, fertility rates are declining, with many speculations about why sperm counts and sperm health are shrinking.

Environmental toxins are often cited as one cause. A new study to be published in Fertility and Sterility points out to a common occurrence in our tech-heavy lifestyles – wireless laptop (WiFi) use.

The study, Use of laptop computers connected to internet through Wi-Fi decreases human sperm motility and increases sperm DNA fragmentation (Vol. 97), sought to evaluate the effects of using laptop computers connected to local area networks on human sperm. The researchers collected semen samples from 29 healthy donors, and identified motile sperm. Healthy sperm samples were divided up, with one half exposed to an internet connected laptop for 4 hours, and the controls kept under identical conditions without WiFi exposure.

The result of their small-scale study showed that the WiFi exposed sperm showed a significant decrease in progressive sperm motility and an increase in DNA fragmentation.

While further research needs to be conducted, they speculate that keeping your testes near a wireless computer may result in less than motile sperm, i.e., another environmentally-linked insult to a man’s sexual health.

:: CarbonNYC

Read More Sexual Health News:

Exposure to Toxins Permanently Changes DNA, Offspring for Generations

Israeli Sperm Counts Drop a Whopping 40 Percent

Can a Male Birth Control Save the Environment?

Tinamarie is a regular contributor to Greenprophet.com. She also blogs at www.tinamariebernard.com.

The post Link Between Unhealthy Sperm and WiFi Use appeared first on Green Prophet.

Male fertility depends on healthy sperm. Just as there are ways a man can enable optimum sexual fitness via diet (what’s good for the heart is often good for a man’s libido) and erectile supplements for example, we are now more keenly aware of how certain toxins can permanently alter sperm production and function. The recent disasters around the globe, particularly the nuclear reactor crisis in Japan, highlights how these forces often out of our individual control.  With concerns of radiation exposure on the top of people’s minds, we at Greenprophet.com want to offer basics every man in the Middle East should know with regards to radiation exposure and his sexual health.

To impregnate his partner, a man’s body must produce appropriate levels of testosterone and other hormones involved in the production of sperm in the testicles. There has to be enough sperm, carried via semen, to be ejaculated out of the penis. And the motility and morphology of sperm must be such that they can reach and penetrate a woman’s ova. It should be noted that globally, sperm counts have been declining. Greenprophet.com reported on the forty percent decline in sperm count among Israelis, attributing these changes to cell phone use and hormone exposure. A low sperm count is considered fewer than 20 million sperm per milliliter of semen.

What about environmental elements that can harm sperm?

The Mayo Health Clinic sites heat, toxins and chemicals as common sources of concern.

Pesticides. Some men exposed to pesticides such as ethylene dibromide and organophosphates have lowered sperm counts. Pesticide exposure has also been linked to testicular cancer. Most studies have been done on men who work in agriculture or live in agricultural areas.

Heavy metal exposure. Exposure to lead or other heavy metals also may cause infertility.

Exposure to radiation or X-rays. Exposure to radiation can reduce sperm production. It can take several years for sperm production to return to normal. With high doses of radiation, sperm production can be permanently reduced.

Overheating the testicles. Frequent use of saunas or hot tubs may temporarily lower your sperm count. Sitting for long periods or wearing tight clothing also may increase the temperature in your scrotum and reduce sperm production.

Prolonged bicycling. Prolonged bicycling is another possible cause of reduced fertility due to overheating the testicles. In some cases, bicycle seat pressure on the area behind the testicles (perineum) can cause numbness in the penis and erectile dysfunction.

It’s the third item on that list raising questions these days. According to the Health Physics Society, a USA-based scientific organization comprised of 6000 professionals members who specialize in radiation safety, the common concern about testicular radiation exposure is birth defects.

Referencing to large population studies, one of which looked at thousands of patients who were exposed to radiation in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, “after 50 years of studying this population, there has been no demonstrable increase in genetic disease. What was learned is that the risk is extremely small and that you need very large populations to demonstrate this risk. In other words, the risk from the radiation is too small to be detected amid the spontaneous incidence of mutations and the hereditary component of mutations that may affect the offspring.”

The National Cancer Institute in the United States has studied thousands of male patients exposed to radiation therapy as part of cancer treatment. “ Families of these individuals also have not demonstrated an increase in birth defects or miscarriage.” Still, the author cautions that infertility or sterility may occur after exposure, though birth defects are unlikely.

“Studies of the atomic bomb survivors indicate even in the high-exposure group that there is not an increased incidence of chromosome abnormalities or genetic disease in the next generation. That is also the case for studies from the National Cancer Institute, which indicate that patients who had cancer and received chemotherapy and radiation did not have an increased incidence in genetic disease or birth defects in the next generation, although they did have problems with infertility.”

They advise men who’ve had even diagnostic exposures to radiation “to wait for at least two spermatogenesis cycles, which is about four months” before attempting to impregnate their partner. It takes approximately 48 days for new sperm cells to form, and 14 days for them to reach maturation. In general, the more frequently a man ejaculates, including via masturbation, the more efficient his sperm-production will be.

In previous articles, we discussed the risks of exposure to toxins on a man’s sperm and offspring that suggest even small changes in diet can have long-term deleterious consequences.

For specifics from the Health Physics Society on the Japanese fukushima reactor, visit their site.

:: Mayo Clinic and Robert Brent, MD, PhD, Health Physics Society

More eco-sexuality news:

Israeli Sperm Count Drops a Whopping Forty Percent

Can a Male Birth Control Pill Save the Environment?

Do These Fats Make My Love Handle Look Big? Eco-Sexy Nutrition for a Man’s Erection

Tinamarie is a regular contributor to Greenprophet.com. Follow her @ModernLoveMuse. She blogs at www.tinamariebernard.com.

Image via bhav.bhav.

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