An important fact is that the study did not find consistent associations between the use of cell phones and motility (the ability of the sperm to move until it finds the egg) or the morphology (the shape) of sperm.
“The study shows that there were cases of men with sperm count and concentration parameters well below those established by the WHO, which means they were abnormal”, says gynecologist Roberto de Azevedo Antunes, responsible for the Conjugal Infertility Outpatient Clinic at the University Hospital from UFRJ (Federal University of Rio de Janeiro) and director of Sbra (Brazilian Association of Assisted Reproduction).
The study does not define, however, what was considered the time of use of the device. As the answers were given in a general questionnaire, each volunteer’s personal perception of what is considered use could be different.
“What is considered cell phone use? Replying to an email message? Looking at social media? Making a call? Holding the device in your hand for more than five minutes? We don’t know. But, regardless of that, the relevant point of the study is the number of volunteers and, no matter how many divergences there may be in the answers, we clearly observed an association between greater exposure to cell phones and worsening sperm parameters”, comments Antunes.
Why does it happen?
Although this study clearly demonstrates the association between the number of male gametes and greater cell phone use, there is still no complete understanding of how and why this happens —It is not possible to say, for example, that cell phone use is the cause of the problem.
“One of the hypotheses would be the interference of electromagnetic waves emitted by devices in use. Even when on standby, the most current smartphones are connected to applications all the time. We still do not have a complete understanding of how these waves could harm sperm production” , says Daniel Suslik Zylbersztejn, urologist specializing in human reproduction at Hospital Israelita Albert Einstein and coordinating physician at Fleury Fertility.
“What we know is that they can cause heating in the region where the cell phone is located and this heat could be one of the causes of damage to sperm production, as the testicles prefer to produce sperm at a lower temperature than the body temperature”, he adds. .
