Eating Beef in Pregnancy Linked to Reduced Sperm in Adult Sons

[nosmokes]

Iwant to be real clear here that this relates only to the commercial/industrial beef-the crap you get in a chain restaraunt or the grocery store, not the free ranged, grass fed organic beef raised by your local producer.
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original-medpagetoday

Eating Beef in Pregnancy Linked to Reduced Sperm in Adult Sons


By Judith Groch, Senior Writer, MedPage Today
Reviewed by Zalman S. Agus, MD; Emeritus Professor at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.
March 28, 2007

ROCHESTER, N.Y., March 28 -- Consumption of beef by women during pregnancy may alter a male's in utero testicular development and compromise his future reproductive capacity, researchers here reported.
The reason could be residual anabolic steroids in the meat, Shanna Swan, Ph.D., of the University of Rochester (N.Y.), and colleagues, reported online in the March 28 issue of Human Reproduction.

In a study of 387 fertile partners of pregnant women, men whose mothers reported eating more than seven beef meals a week while pregnant, had a sperm concentration more than 24% lower than that of men whose mothers ate less beef, they found.

In addition, three times more sons of high-beef consumers had a sperm concentration that would be classified as subfertile according to World Health Organization standards, compared with men whose mothers ate less beef, said Dr. Swan and colleagues.
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complete article with links to other sources here

[WiseButAngrySara]

1. Interesting. Likely due to the addition of hormones, but do you

have definitive proof of your statement that "this relates only to the commercial/industrial beef-the crap you get in a chain restaraunt or the grocery store, not the free ranged, grass fed organic beef raised by your local producer" or is this just conjecture on your part? Were controlled studies done comparing the two? I doubt it. But I don't at all doubt that your statement is probably true.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

2. The study doesn't say if it's hormone injected beef vs. organic

They didn't run the controls. They even admit it could be something completely unrelated, such as heterocyclic amines from cooling and processing of meat. Which would make more sense, since there's no significant difference between the levels of hormones in meat of cows that have been treated with hormones, and those that haven't.

[Toucano]

5. Are there "residual anabolic steroids" in organic beef?

I don't know, so I'm asking.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

6. Yes, there's some.

Before synthetic hormones became available, they had to be extracted from livestock.

There was one famous early case, perhaps the first guy to isolate and characterize a steroid, he had to use something like several hundred tons of bull testicles as raw material. (He got them left over from big cattle ranches, he didn't go around castrating bulls for that purpose :D )

[karlrschneider]

15. Well that was one hell of a waste of Rocky Mountain Oysters.

;-)

[nosmokes]

7. can you support that hooligan? especially the part about the hormones

since it contradicts everything i've ever read about feeding cattle hormones. i'd be interested to read your studies on that.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

8. I've got it personally from the Canada Cattleman's Association.

Not a scientific journal, no, but I believe they're citing one. I'll look it up.

In the meantime, could you look up data that shows there is a significant difference? Thanks.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

10. There's this.

Food source Serving (ounces) Estrogen (nanograms)
Steer beef, implanted 3 1.85
Steer beef, non-implanted 3 1.01
Hen's egg (one egg) 2 1,750.00
Cabbage 3 2,016.00
Peas 3 336.00
Milk 8 35.48
(Source: Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture, Report on Use of Hormonal Substances in Animals, December, 1986)

There's also an interesting article from the Journal of Food Chemistry that found the level of testosterones in the meat of bulls is the same as in the meat of steers. That's not implanted vs. non-implanted, no, but I suspect bulls see higher levels of testosterone than steers, no. Do you want that reference? Shall I keep looking?

[nosmokes]

13. implanted = regular steroid dosage?

frankly it's hard to make sense out of what you posted

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

18. yeah, implanted vs. non-implanted...

equals steroid vs. non-steroid.

Sorry, I've got no idea how to post proper tables here.

It's saying the meat from cows with steroids have got less steroids then eggs, lettuce, etc.

[Bucky]

3. Wow, sounds like a good way to fight global overpopulation while also saving Mother Earth...

...from those Methane emitting global warmeing fart machines called cows.

It's them or us, people. Start eating and slow your breeding!!

[LeftyMom]

4. Until they compare the two, you can't assume that.

Last I heard, they were planning to do a similar study in Europe (no hormones permitted in beef cattle since the '80's) and compare the results.

Certainly wouldn't surprise me if that's not all there is to it.

[nosmokes]

11. it's not an assumption out of thin air.

the beef consumed in the study was undoubtably commercial beef or i'm sure mention would have been made of the fact it was organic beef being consumed. so if we consider that the major difference in diets between the mothers of the men w/ reduced sperm counts and those w/ normal sperrm counts was the consumption of commercial beef during pregnancy then i would maintain it's a fairly safe assumption that organic beef would still be safe. iknow assumptions are dangerous things though and i spose if i were a pregnant woman i would probably want some more info before tearing into too many steaks.

but there's an awful lot of steroids pumped into commercial beef cattle (and commercial dairy cows for that matter) and we know that anabolic steroid use by males reduces their sperm count and does other wicked things to their sex drive and sex organs so it's not a huge leap to see where the consumption of steroid laden beef could do some long term harm if consumed while the fetus is developing those organs.

we're fucking w/ our food so much it's to the point where our sustenance is killing us now.

[ismnotwasm]

9. Interesting

And the beef consumption of the fathers is not an interest? (Isn't it Agent Orange that causes enough genetic damage to affect further generations from the male side) Not the point I guess. I wonder if the effect is potentially cumulative, since the men are fertile and their partners pregnant, the 24% doesn't seem to matter at this point. I going to assume the study was done properly-- other known causes of lower sperm count eliminated as much as possible. A follow up study of the children would be interesting.

Anyway, the steroids we put into our food are a very frightening topic.

[rinsd]

12. To be even more clear the problem is with those have SEVEN or more servings a wk (nt)

[nosmokes]

14. yeah, you'd think heart attacks in the moms might be a bigger

factor than low sperm counts in male spawn, huh?

[rinsd]

16. I was discussing this with someone else...

...and they brought up the strange culinary cravings that pegnant women tend to get.

But I was still struck.

Even in my fast food heyday of my early 20's, you would be hard pressed to find weeks where I had 7 or more beef servings.

But then again, I re-read the article...its says the avg serving for respondents was 5!

[rinsd]

17. I was discussing this with someone else...

...and they brought up the strange culinary cravings that pegnant women tend to get.

But I was still struck.

Even in my fast food heyday of my early 20's, you would be hard pressed to find weeks where I had 7 or more beef servings.

But then again, I re-read the article...its says the avg serving for respondents was 5!