How everyday chemicals are destroying sperm counts in humans and animals

Within just a few generations, human sperm counts may decline to levels below those considered adequate for fertility. That is the alarming claim made in epidemiologist’s new book, which assembles a raft of evidence to show that the sperm count of Western men has plunged by over 50% in less than 40 years.

That means men reading this article will on average have half the sperm count of their grandfathers. And, if the data is extrapolated forwards to its logical conclusion, men could have little or no reproductive capacity from 2060 onwards.

These are shocking claims, but they are backed by a growing body of evidence that is finding reproductive abnormalities and declining fertility in humans and wildlife worldwide.

It is difficult to say whether these trends will continue – or whether, if they do, they could lead to our extinction. But it is clear that one of the main causes of these issues – the chemicals we are surrounded by in our everyday lives – requires better regulation in order to protect our reproductive capacities and those of the creatures with which we share our environment.

Declining sperm count

Studies revealing declining sperm counts in humans are not new. These issues first received global attention in the 1990s, though critics pointed to discrepancies in the way sperm counts were recorded to downplay the findings.

Then, in 2017, a more robust study that accounted for these discrepancies revealed that the sperm count of western men had declined by 50%-60% between 1973 and 2011, dropping on average 1%-2% per year. This is the “countdown” to which Shanna Swan refers.

The lower a man’s sperm count, the lower their chance of conceiving a child through sexual intercourse. The 2017 study warns that our grandchildren could possess sperm counts below the level considered suitable for successful conception – likely to force “most couples” to use assisted reproduction methods by 2045, according to Swan.

Equally alarming is an increase in the rate of miscarriages and developmental abnormalities in humans, such as small penis development, intersexuality (displaying both male and female characteristics) and non-descended testes – all found to be linked to declining sperm count.

What’s causing this

Many factors could explain these trends. After all, lifestyles have changed dramatically since 1973, including changes in diet, exercise, obesity levels and alcohol intake – all of which we know can contribute to low sperm counts.

But in recent years, researchers have pinpointed the foetal stage of human development, before any lifestyle factors come into play, as a decisive moment for men’s reproductive health.

During the “programming window” for foetal masculinisation – when the foetus develops male characteristics – disruptions in hormone signalling have been shown to have a lasting impact on male reproductive capabilities into adulthood. This was originally proven in animal studies, but there is now growing support from human studies.

This hormonal interference is caused by chemicals in our everyday products, which have the capacity to either act like our hormones or to prevent them from functioning properly at key stages in our development.

We call these “endocrine-disrupting chemicals”, and we are exposed to them through what we eat and drink, the air we breathe, and the products we put on our skin. They are sometimes called “everywhere chemicals”, because they’re very difficult to avoid in the modern world.

Exposure to chemicals

Endocrine-disrupting chemicals are passed to the foetus by the mother, whose exposure to the chemicals during her pregnancy will determine the degree to which the foetus experiences hormonal interference. That means that present-day sperm count data speaks not to the chemical environment today, but to the environment, as it was when those men were still in the womb. That environment is undoubtedly becoming more polluted.

It is not just one specific chemical causing the disruption. Different types of everyday chemical – found in everything from washing up liquids to pesticides, additives and plastics – can all disrupt the normal functioning of our hormones.

Some, like those in the contraceptive pill, or those used as growth promoters in animal farming, were specifically designed to affect hormones, but are now found throughout the environment.

Are animals suffering?

If chemicals are to blame for declining sperm counts in humans, you would expect the animals that share our chemical environments to be affected too. And so they are: a recent study found that pet dogs are suffering the same decline in sperm counts for the same reasons as we are.

Studies of farmed mink in Canada and Sweden, meanwhile, have also linked industrial and agricultural chemicals with the creatures’ lower sperm counts and abnormal testicular and penis development.

In the wider environment, the effect has been seen in alligators in Florida, in shrimp-like crustaceans in the United Kingdom, and in fish living downstream of wastewater treatment plants around the world.

Even species thought to roam far away from these sources of pollution are suffering from chemical contamination. A female killer whale that washed up on the shores of Scotland in 2017 was found to be one of the most contaminated biological specimens ever reported. Scientists say she never calved.

Regulating chemicals

In some instances, the abnormalities observed in wildlife are linked with very different chemical compounds to those observed in humans. But they all share a capacity to disrupt the normal functioning of the hormones that dictate reproductive health.

In the United Kingdom, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is currently building a chemicals strategy that could address these issues. The European Union, meanwhile, is changing chemical regulations to prevent banned substances from being replaced with other harmful ones.

Ultimately, public pressure could demand stronger regulatory interventions, but as chemicals are invisible – less tangible than plastic straws and smoking chimneys – this may prove difficult to achieve. Shanna Swan’s book, which presents the urgency of our reproductive situation, is certainly an important contribution to this end.

This is only for your information, kindly take the advice of your doctor for medicines, exercises and so on.     

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Drug that destroys coronavirus in cats could destroy Covid-19 in humans

A new study published in the journal Nature Communications suggested that prodrug GC376 which is used to treat coronavirus disease in feline can be effective against the widespread novel coronavirus.

Prodrugs are compounds that have to be metabolized inside the body before they become active. GC376 gets converted to GC373.

A group of researchers at the University of Alberta, Canada, noted in the study that the prodrug targets an enzyme called Mpro in the SARS-CoV-2 and is a strong drug candidate for the treatment of coronavirus disease since it is already shown to be effective in animals.

The research team is set to launch phase 1 clinical trials of the drug soon.

Feline coronavirus

Feline coronavirus FCoV is a common infection that infects around 25 to 40 per cent of domestic cats in the world.

The virus enters a cat’s body through the oral route (licking, for example) and multiplies in the intestines. The cat will expel the virus in its feces where the virus may survive for up to a few weeks. Disinfectants can quickly destroy the FCoV.

According to the study, most cats that get this infection are asymptomatic. However, they may develop a mild form of diarrhea or it could lead to a life-threatening condition called feline infectious peritonitis (FIP).

The latter only develops when the FCoV virus develops a mutant strain inside the intestinal tract of the cat that can infect macrophages (a type of immune system cell) and spread throughout the body.

Prodrug GC376

Mpro is a protease present in the SARS-CoV-2 virus that helps the virus replicate and make copies of itself.

Prodrug GC376 has been proposed to have broad specificity against the Mpro of the novel coronavirus previously. To study the effect of this drug against the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the researchers exposed the virus to the drug in cell cultures.

It was found that GC376 when incubated with SARS-CoV-2 converts to GC373, which binds to the active site of Mpro protease, inhibiting the function of the protease. The active site of an enzyme is a pocket in the enzyme wherein the substrate (the compound an enzyme acts on) binds to it.

“We determined the three-dimensional shape of the protease with the drug in the active site pocket, showing the mechanism of inhibition. This will allow us to develop even more effective drugs," said Joanne Lemieux, the corresponding author of the study and a professor of biochemistry at the University of Alberta, Canada, as per the news release by the university.

Novel coronavirus attacks and destroys T cells, just like HIV

The immune system has many components that work together in protecting the body from foreign invaders. One of the most important types of immune cells is T lymphocytes or T cells, a type of white blood cell that acts as the core of adaptive immunity, the system that modifies the immune response to specific pathogens.

Now, a team from the United States and China revealed evidence that the coronavirus disease, caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2), attacks the immune system’s T lymphocytes. The worrying findings highlight the destructive power of the novel coronavirus, which can destroy the immune system, leaving the patient unable to fight off the infection.

The novel coronavirus

Coronaviruses have been causing problems in humans for a long time. Though many versions of the virus are known to trigger only mild symptoms such as common colds. However, three recent types of coronavirus have caused deadly diseases – the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in China in 2002, the Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) in Saudi Arabia in 2012, and the current global pandemic, the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), which first emerged in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, in China December 2019.

The impact of the previous coronavirus outbreaks in 2002 and 2012 has been mild compared with the mayhem unleashed by the SARS-CoV-2. Within only a few months, the novel coronavirus has prompted most countries to go into lockdown, dwindling economies, and overwhelming health care systems with the more than 2 million people infected.

Meanwhile, scientists across the globe are racing to understand the SARS-CoV-2-in the hope of finding a treatment or cure. Now, the researchers’ surprise discovery has shed light on the potency of the novel coronavirus is killing powerful immune cells, which are supposed to kill the virus instead.

Taken as hostage

The researchers from the Fudan University in Shanghai, China, and the New York Blood Centre, has studied the virus’s action on T-lymphocyte cell lines. T lymphocytes or T cells work by identifying and eliminating foreign invaders in the body.

To arrive at their findings, published in the journal of Cellular & Molecular Immunology, the team captured a cell infected by the virus, penetrated the membrane, and injected toxic chemicals into the cell. After this, the chemicals killed both the virus and infected cells by tearing them into pieces.

Surprisingly, the team has found that when the coronavirus and the T cell came into contact with each other, the T cell became prey to the coronavirus, wherein a structure in the spike of the coronavirus triggered the attachment of a viral envelope and the cell membrane. After, the genes of the virus entered the T cell and overwhelmed it, took it hostage, and deactivated its ability to protect the body.
The team then tried to do the same with the SARS virus, and another coronavirus, but these pathogens were not able to infect T cells. The researchers suspect that the SARS virus, which caused an outbreak in 2002 to 2003, has a lack of a membrane fusion function. The virus can only infect cells that have a particular receptor protein called the angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2). T cells contain only a few ACE2 receptor proteins.

It is an important discovery, knowing the effect of the SARS-CoV-2 on T cells, since this may show why the disease is spreading so quickly, and infecting so many across the globe. It also explains why certain vulnerable populations are at a high risk of dying from the infection, including those who are more than 65, those who are immunocompromised, and those with underlying medical conditions like lung disease, heart disease, diabetes, and hypertension.

Further investigation shows that patients who died from COVID-19 had damage to their bodies similar to both SARS and HIV. Also, the team found that unlike HIV that replicates faulty T cells, the coronavirus does not replicate, showing that the T cells and the virus may end up dying together.

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To understand causes of bladder cancer, scientists recreate DNA damage caused by toxins from smoking

In a bid to understand more about the causes of bladder cancer, researchers recreated DNA damage caused by toxins from smoking.

The causes of bladder cancer remain largely unknown, however, smoking is seen as the main risk factor for the disease.

Researchers grew human bladder tissues in the laboratory and exposed them to a common toxin from cigarette smoke. After the tissues were damged by the smoke toxin, the team analysed all 3 billion letters of the genetic cide (DNA) to find a pattern of changes called a : "mutational signature."

Dr. Baker said; " Mutational signatures can be used like fingerprints at a crime scene. When we look at the DNA in cancer we can see the fingerprints of all the criminals involved in causing the damage that led to cancer.

The DNA damaging event might be exposed to cigarette smoke or UV from the sun but it might also be an unknown event that causes cancer.

Our study found that the smoke toxin left its distinctive fingerprints on the DNA of bladder tissues grown in the laboratory. However, when we looked at the DNA of patients' bladder cancers  the mutational signature, of the smoke toxin, was only responsible for a small amount of the damage.

So despite smoking being the key risk factor for bladder cancer, direct damage of the DNA by smoke toxins is unlikely to be the main reason for these cancers forming.

It may be that the smoke toxins accelerate other DNA damaging events and attention is now focusing on a family of enzymes called " APOBEC".

APOBEC enzymes destroy viruses by mutating their DNA as part of the body's natural defences against infection, but recent studies suggest they might mistakenly target our own DNA in a number of cancer types. The next stage of the study will be to try and understand how and why APOBEC enzymes become activated in the cells of the bladder.

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These Common Household Products Can Destroy the Novel Coronavirus

News of stores running out of hand-sanitizing gels and chlorine wipes may have you worried about how to protect your family at home as COVID-19 spreads. But plain old hand soap will go a long way.

“It isn’t possible to disinfect every surface you touch throughout your day,” says Stephen Thomas, M.D., chief of infectious diseases and director of global health at Upstate Medical University in Syracuse. “The planet is covered with bacteria and viruses, and we’re constantly in contact with these surfaces, so hand-washing is still your best defense against COVID-19.” 

You need to amp up your typical cleaning routine only if someone in the household exhibits signs and symptoms of a respiratory infection, or if you live in an area with known cases of COVID-19. In that scenario, Thomas says, “Clean high-traffic areas that get touched frequently, such as kitchen counters and bathroom faucets, three times a day with a product that kills viruses.”

The good news is that coronaviruses are some of the easiest types of viruses to kill with the appropriate product, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. “It has an envelope around it that allows it to merge with other cells to infect them,” explains Thomas. “If you disrupt that coating, the virus can’t do its job.”

Even if you can't get your hands on hand sanitizer or Clorox wipes, below are a number of cleaning products you probably have around the house already, and that stores are more likely to have in stock, that are effective in deactivating the novel coronavirus. We also tell you the products that don’t work, and when you can expect retailers to stock back up on cleaning supplies.

Cleaning Products That Destroy Coronavirus

Soap and Water
Just the friction from scrubbing with soap and water can break the coronavirus’s protective envelope. “Scrub like you’ve got sticky stuff on the surface and you really need to get it off,” says Richard Sachleben, an organic chemist and member of the American Chemical Society. Discard the towel or leave it in a bowl of soapy water for a while to destroy any virus particles that may have survived. 

Bleach
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends a diluted bleach solution (⅓ cup bleach per 1 gallon of water or 4 teaspoons bleach per 1 quart of water) for virus disinfection. Wear gloves while using bleach, and never mix it with anything except water. (The only exception is when doing laundry with detergent.)

“Bleach works great against viruses,” Sachleben says. Just don’t keep the solution for longer than a few days because bleach will degrade certain plastic containers.

Bleach can also corrode metal over time, so Sachleben recommends that people not get into the habit of cleaning their faucets and stainless steel products with it. Because bleach is harsh for many countertops as well, you should rinse surfaces with water after disinfecting to prevent discoloration or damage to the surface. 

Isopropyl Alcohol
Alcohol solutions with at least 70 percent alcohol are effective against coronavirus. Do not dilute the alcohol solution. Alcohol is generally safe for all surfaces but can discolor some plastics, Sachleben says.

Hydrogen Peroxide
According to the CDC, household (3 percent) hydrogen peroxide is effective in deactivating rhinovirus, the virus that causes the common cold, within 6 to 8 minutes of exposure. Rhinovirus is more difficult to destroy than coronaviruses, so hydrogen peroxide should be able to break down coronavirus in less time. Pour it undiluted into a spray bottle and spray it on the surface to be cleaned, but let it sit on the surface for several minutes. 

Hydrogen peroxide is not corrosive, so it’s okay to use it on metal surfaces. But similar to bleach, it can discolor fabrics if you accidentally get in on your clothes. “It’s great for getting into hard-to-reach crevices,” Sachleben says. “You can pour it on the area and you don’t have to wipe it off because it essentially decomposes into oxygen and water.”

What Not to Use Against Coronavirus

Homemade Hand Sanitizer
You’re probably seeing all sorts of hand sanitizer recipes floating around your social media and the internet, but Thomas, at Upstate Medical in Syracuse, advises against making your own. “People don’t know the right ratios to use, and the internet won’t give you the right answer,” he warns. “Not only can you hurt yourself, but it could give you a false sense of security.” 

Sachleben seconds that advice. “I’m a professional chemist, and I don’t mix my own disinfectant products at home,” he says. “Companies spend a bunch of time and money to pay chemists specifically to formulate hand sanitizers that work and that are safe. If you make it yourself, how can you know if it’s stable or if it works?”

Vodka
There are widely circulated recipes on the internet using vodka to combat coronavirus. A couple of vodka makers, including Tito’s and Smirnoff, have already come out with statements telling their customers that their 80-proof product does not contain enough ethyl alcohol (40 percent compared with the 70 percent required) to kill the coronavirus. 

Distilled White Vinegar
Disinfection recommendations using vinegar are popular online, but there is no evidence that they are effective against coronavirus. 

This is only for your information, kindly take the advice of your doctor for medicines, exercises and so on.     

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https://gseasyrecipes.blogspot.com. feel free to view for easy, simple and healthy recipes    
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