Researchers warn that a gender binding chemical in foods and drink containers could increase male infertility. The new study explained that males having high levels of Bisphenol A (BPA) in bodies are more prone to have low sperm counts. BPA is used extensively to harden plastics which are found in a baby bottles, plastic knives and the lining of food and drink cans.
The chemical imitates oestrogen and meddles with the way hormones are processed by the body. Even though some studies have shown it to be safe while other have connected it to breast cancer, diabetes, liver damage, obesity and infertility. Specialists guess that BPA id demonstrable in more than ninety percent people.
In the human study first of its kind Professor Meeker and co-author Russ Hauser, from the Harvard School of Public Health, conscripted one hundred and ninety males through a fertility clinic. Researchers compared the level of BPA in the urine samples with sperm quality and concentration of the subjects. The symbol of DNA harm in their sperm was also considered.
They found that males with utmost BPA levels had twenty-three percent lower sperm concentration that those with the least. The results also proposed ten percent increase in DNA damage. Their results required to be repeated with larger sample size, reported study published in the journal Reproductive Toxicology.
Denmark has become the first EU country to ban the chemical in food and drinks containers for children, earlier this year. Canada and three U.S. states have also brought in bans.
A great deal of the spotlight for BPA is on the exposures in utero (in the womb) or in early life, which is certainly enormously significant, but this proposes exposure may also be a concern for adults, said lead researcher Professor John Meeker from the University of Michigan in the U.S.