Todd wrote:

>So perhaps the key is plenty of meat in the diet and a charge
account at Victoria's Secret.

This comment's only tangential to the protein post you made, but I recall
some studies noting the geographic variation of and possible decline of
sperm counts over time: http://www.pmac.net/rachels2.htm (That cites a New
York Times article that I believe is this one:
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~chance/course/Syllabi/Princeton96/Sperm_Counts.htm
l).

The original research, if I recall correctly, noted that in England and Los
Angeles, sperm counts were pretty low, and in New York pretty high. (But one
could argue that life in New York requires major cojones of all its
inhabitants, I suppose.)

The first article notes: "AVERAGE sperm counts in the U.S. and Europe during
the past 50 years have declined more steeply than the British first
reported, but no decline was found in less-industrialized countries of Asia
and Latin America. In the U.S., sperm counts have declined 1.5% each year
and in Europe the annual decline has been twice as great."

>Incidentally, going back to the obligatory paleofood connection,
I think that a higher-protein diet, being also higher in
arginine, should have a positive effect on sexual performance for
both men and women, since circulatory health has a lot to do with
this.  Arginine is now recognized as essential for circulatory
health.<

The first article above discusses the premise that sperm counts may have
declined in part due to endocrine-affecting pollutants: "In the early 1980s,
researchers with U.S. Environmental Protection Agency identified 16
industrial chemicals that reduce sperm counts.[12] In 1995, European
researchers showed that common industrial chemicals widely present in U.S.
foods (because of contact with plastics) cause reductions in size of
testicles and diminished sperm counts in exposed mice."

However, that said, it would be interesting if a dietary, rather than
pollutant, connection could ever legitimately be drawn. (Maybe it has, but I
haven't yet heard it.)

C.B.





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