Count Down: How Our Modern World Is Threatening Sperm Counts, Altering Male and Female Reproductive Development, and Imperiling the Future of the Human Race

In 2018, the global sperm-bank market was valued at $4.33 billion; it’s expected to reach $5.45 billion by 2025. A widely touted estimate is that thirty thousand to sixty thousand children are conceived through sperm donation each year in the United States alone.

Here’s how this happens. When a man wears a testosterone patch or applies a testosterone gel, the hormone enters his bloodstream and his testosterone levels go up. Sounds good so far, right? But his brain interprets this rise as a sign that there’s plenty of testosterone, so it sends signals to the testes to stop making more; this in turn causes a

infertility is linked to an increased risk of certain diseases and earlier death in both men and women, while leading to a decrease in the number of children born over time.

In some countries throughout the world, including the United States, a massive sexual slump is underway, due to declines in people’s sex drives and interest in sexual activity; men, including younger guys, are also experiencing greater rates of erectile dysfunction.

After a man starts producing sperm during early adolescence, he’s at continuous risk for potential harm to his swimmers, a vulnerability that lasts for the rest of his life.

the decline continues at the same rate, by 2050 many couples will need to turn to technology—such as assisted reproduction, frozen embryos, even eggs and sperm that are created from other cells in the laboratory (yes, this is actually being done)—to reproduce.

pregnant woman is more likely to miscarry when her partner’s sperm is faulty, but neither partner may realize this.

Looked at another way, the most important events in a male’s life, in terms of sexual and reproductive development, occur while he’s still in utero.

The ideal window is before age thirty-five, when fertility is still near its peak; but many women don’t consider the procedure until they’re approaching forty or have even passed that milestone, when the quality of their eggs has already declined.