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Laptops — threat to male fertility

Daily Times Monitor

Traditionally drug use, alcohol, smoking and obesity have been credited with lowering male sperm counts and increasing the risk of infertility. However, it seems that there is a new culprit on the block – the innocuous looking laptop computer. According to a report in The Times on Friday, new research indicates that the combination of heat generated by laptops and the posture needed to balance them on the lap leads to raised temperatures around the scrotum. The British daily said that past research had shown that higher scrotal temperatures could damage sperm counts, thus affecting male fertility. Furthermore, the introduction of new technology such as Bluetooth and infrared connections — which provide wireless links to the Internet — has resulted in a growing number of men using the machines on their thighs rather than a desk. To keep the testicles at an ideal temperature — and for greater comfort — men naturally sit with their legs further apart than women. When working on a laptop, however, they will adopt a less natural position in order to balance it on their laps. And this is what produces a significant rise in body heat between their thighs.

The latest findings, published in the Human Reproduction journal, place teenagers and young men as the most high-risk group. Thus, researchers say, the time spent with a computer positioned on the lap should be cut down. Researchers from the State University of New York said their study was the first to look at the effect of heat from laptop computers on scrotal temperature. Using 29 volunteers aged 21 to 35, the researchers, led by Yefim Sheynkin, found that when men sat with their thighs together to balance a laptop, scrotal temperatures rose by 21.Celsius (C). But once the laptop was in use, average temperatures rose by 2.6C on the left of the scrotum and 2.8C on the right.

Research this year showed that British sperm counts have dropped by almost a third in a decade. A study of 7,500 men who attended the Aberdeen Fertility Centre, at the University of Aberdeen, between 1989 and 2002, recorded a fall by nearly 30 percent in average sperm concentrations. While the usual suspects, as well as pesticides, chemicals and radioactive material, have been traditionally held responsible for damaging male fertility, researchers are now ready to add laptops to their list of culprits. And it seems that the problem is not about to go away anytime soon. As Dr Sheynkin point out, “by 2005, there will be 60 million laptops in the US and 150 million worldwide”. He said that improvements in the power, size and price of laptops meant that younger people favoured them over desktop computers, a fact substantiated by sales figures. He went on to say that laptops could reach internal operating temperatures of more than 70C. The average surface temperature of the computers used in the experiment increased from nearly 31C at the start of the test to nearly 40C after one hour.

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