Remember the 1974 Sean Connery movie where he was the last fertile man on earth?  Zardoz.  Well art seems to predate and predict reality.  Things may just come to something close to that.

Birth rates across Western Europe are the lowest ever seen.  The numbers of babies being born is not as great as the number of people dying  (1,2,3).   France and Spain have active campaigns to increase the number of babies being made!  (Any volunteers to go help out)?   Africa, for the first time in memory, is also in the negative numbers in terms of births, with the number of children being born (never mind surviving to adulthood) not coming close to number of people lost to disease, famine, tribal genocide and war.   Here in the States the main thing keeping our birth rate up is illegal immigration! 

Worldwide, the fertility of both men and women is declining but things seem to be worse for the men!  In 1960 a good sperm count was considered to be 120 million sperm per milliliter of seminal fluid.  Anything lower than that and a man was considered to be only marginally fertile.  These days, things have become so bad that a man is considered fertile if he has only 20 million sperm per milliliter of ejaculate!  What happened? 

Xenoestrogens happened.  Since WW 2, mankind has filled the world and himself with estrogen like substances.  Pesticides, synthetic fertilizers, petrochemical fumes, the esters that plastics give off when heated, and the worst offender of all in the estrogen world – soy.  I won't rehash my litany against soy, you'll have to read about it's many ill effects on my website (Soy the Poison Seed), at www.westonaprice.org, and www.soyonlineservice.co.nz.   In both men and women high estrogen creates infertility.  That's why estrogen is used in birth control pills.  The synthetic progesterone used in other birth control pills have been molecularly modified to act like estrogens, which is why instead of increasing fertility the way real (natural) progesterone does the prescription drug, progesterone, decreases fertility and if used during pregnancy can create birth defects and mutation.   

In men, estrogen decreases testosterone levels and sperm count!  Read on the websites cited, about what happened to the rabbit industry in New Zealand where the bunnies were fed soy feed.  They stopped reproducing and the industry crashed.   How can anything stop a rabbit, from reproducing?!  Isoflavones (estrogen) can.  Before you bright light vegetarians out there tell me that Asians eat mainly soy and have great birthrates, the eating soy part is not true among those with high birth rates!  The average Chinese eats 5 to 15 ml (one to three TEASPONS) of soy products daily mainly in soy sauce.  It is widely known throughout Asia that when a woman does not want to have sexual relations with her husband any more, she feeds him more and more tofu!  Monks in monasteries needing to be celibate are urged to eat more tofu and soy products.  In Asia, it is common knowledge that soy reduces sexual urge and ability.  The propaganda and contrived studies showing that soy is such a fantastic food arises from the huge agribusiness firms that grow most of the world’s soybeans, Monsanto and Archer Daniel Midland.  

Compare China with its relatively low soy consumption and high birth rate with Japan and its considerably higher soy consumption and their low birth rate.  Japanese fertility has dropped so precipitously that the number of in vitro fertilizations has skyrocketed topping 100,000!  Of the 100,189 in vitro births in Japan, 55,688 were normal in vitro fertilizations, 13,316 involved use of frozen pre-fertilized eggs and 31,185 fertilizations were done with the micro fertilization technique where sperm from a relatively infertile man with inactive sperm is injected into the egg using a microscopic needle.  (4).

On the whole Americans and Europeans consume much more soy daily than their Chinese brothers.  Soy being the cheep fodder it is, Africa is not far behind the First World in its soy consumption.  Consider this, every glass of soy milk contains the equivalent of 1 birth control pills worth of estrogen and based on body weight, an infant exclusively fed soy formula received the estrogen equivalent of at least 5 birth control pills per day!  (6) Wonder why 6 to 8 year old girls are reaching menstruation?  Wonder no more! 

These are some of the reasons why Dr. Dorris Rapp MD one of the worlds leading Pediatric Allergists and Environmental Physicians says that by 2045 only 21% of the men on the entire planet will be fertile!  (5).  Shades of Zardoz!!!  Only the members of wacko environmental and animal rights groups’ hell bent on returning the planet to the wild, would applaud that finding.  The rest of us need to worry about the continuation of the human race! 

The second thing putting humans on the endangered species list is the low fat / low cholesterol fad.  Let's put things simply, fats are needed to create hormones. Hormones are sterols whittled down from cholesterol molecules.  Anyone with a total cholesterol count under 180 does not have enough cholesterol to make hormones with.  Period.  Cholesterol is also used to maintain brain size (the brain is 60 to 70% cholesterol), maintain skin suppleness and pad the internal organs.  This is the reason why strict vegetarians look 10 to 20 years older than their actual age, no sexual hormones.  That's why patients on cholesterol lowering medicines with low total cholesterol counts have no libido!  The sexual hormones of Progesterone and Testosterone are the fountains of youth and strength.  Thyroid hormone is the fountain of energy.  The only vegetarians who don't exhibit severe aging and loss of sex drive are the ones who do as the Hindus in India do, eat a good deal of eggs and drink milk. 

What can be done to overcome low sperm count?  Glad you asked:

We can't avoid exposure to all estraces; it's well nigh impossible even if you take refuge in caves and wilderness areas of the West.  So we have to stop their physiological effect on us. DiIndoleMethane (DIM) 200 to 400 mg per day is the first tool.  DIM is from cabbage and will block the estrogen receptors in the body keeping the hormone from becoming active, it also helps to eliminate the estrogen from the body.

Maca is our second tool, it has DIM in it as well and nutrients that seem to increase libido and fertility.  Mammals are not supposed to be able to reproduce in altitudes above 12,000 feet.  When the Spanish Conquistadors got to the tops of the Andes Mountains they noticed their livestock showed no interest in sex and did not reproduce, while they were not their usual randy selves in cavorting with the local women folk.  They asked the local medicine men what was up and got the answer that the situation they were in was prevented in the natives by eating the sweet potato like tuber.  The Indians ate liberally of it daily and fed it to their animals.  Once the Spanish started using the Maca and feeding it to their livestock, they and their animals came back on line and were their old reproductive selves again.  Two to three teaspoons (10 to 15 grams) of Maca are needed daily by both men and women seeking to be fertile.

Now to the actual making of sperm.  Studies in male infertility, mostly done in Central Europe confirm that the ingestion of high doses of certain amino acids greatly increases not only the number but also the quality of sperm.  TriMethylGlycine (TMG), DiMethylGlycine (DMG) and Arginine are three amino acids used.    All of these sperm builders also have the erection enhancing action of creating Nitric Oxide (NO), the blood gas Viagra seeks to spare.  Higher levels of NO not only increase circulation to the male and female sexual organs but it has been shown the increased NO also helps feed the brain originated blood.  Experiments are now being conducted feeding early Alzheimer’s patients Viagra. 

Relatively high levels of dosing are needed with each of these amino's to increase sperm counts.  1500 to 3000 mg per day.  With TMG and Arginine this is easily done as the supplements are widely available.  TMG also has the good effect of lowering the markers for vascular inflammation C–Reactive protein and Homocystine.  Pharmaceutical grade DMG is available for horses to enhance exercise recovery and many humans use this pure form of the supplement.  

Next we need to increase the volume of fluid a man ejaculates.  A fellow can have a good sperm count but if all the little buggers are stuck together in a viscous (thick) small volume of seminal fluid their chances of swimming free of the fluid and actually getting to an egg are small.  Pygeum is an African herb that increases the volume of seminal fluid.  It also is very healthy for the prostate.  Daily intake should be around 300 mg. 

On the subject of seminal fluid production, the anti-Parkinson's, anti-Prolactin drug Parlodel (Bromocryptine) performs this function admirably.  The anti-Prolactin action is also something many infertile men and women need as prolactin in both sexes diminishes fertility.  Prolactin is the hormone a woman secretes during breast-feeding it decreases her libido and fertility; the idea is to make it virtually impossible to become pregnant while still breast-feeding.  Prolactin production in both sexes increases with age and is a major cause of infertility.  Parlodel is widely used in Europe as an anti-aging or brain-boosting drug.  Before your doctor will prescribe this drug he should do blood work to see if high Prolactin levels are a problem.   Bromocryptine and an anti-estrogen drug are used by a well-known male pornographic movie star to increase the amount of seminal fluid he produces for his “money shots”. 

Now we must touch on two very needed nutrients. There can be no fertility without Zinc and Vitamin E.  Zinc is the major mineral component of seminal fluid, it's the reason the stuff is white!  The prostate is the most zinc rich organ in the body and with each ejaculation it looses an amount of zinc equal to or greater than the Recommended Daily Amount (RDA) of zinc.  We in the western world have very zinc deficient diets.  To tally up all the times you've come and add up the zinc lost and you'll see that unless you have a very good intake of zinc each day you'll be on the losing side of the proposition soon.  50 to 100 mg of zinc is needed daily, the older the man the higher the intake should be.

Vitamin E was found to be essential for sexual function as far back as the 60's with Dr. Thomas Cureton's pioneering studies. Pay no heed to the junk medical science studies purporting to find Vitamin E is bad. They are trying to scare folks away from the vitamin because they have a new drug to sell you.  We saw the same happen in the 80's when a tainted batch of tryptophan was purposely dumped on the US market.  Tryptophan was a multi-million dollar seller and the natural way of reducing depression and helping sleep.  Six weeks after the tryptophan was banned Prozac was released, coincidence?  Don't bet on it!  Vitamin E dose should be 400 to 800 IU daily.

Now, for an unusual recommendation:  Drink coffee.  A research paper presented at the American Society for Reproductive Medicine meeting in San Antonio in 2003 showed that coffee perked up sluggish sperm!  Dr. Euan Paul reported “These findings are very exiting.  There has been growing concern about sperm problems and about lack of fertility in particular”.  Caffeine acts as a stimulant to the dopamine cells of the brain, helping people to concentrate (dopamine is also essential for sexuality, no dopamine = no libido), sperm also experienced a boost when a man drank coffee. 

The 40 year long, multi-thousand patient Hawaiian Men’s Health Study also found that coffee drinkers had improved sexual performance versus the non-coffee drinkers and what’s more, coffee drinkers rarely got senile dementia and if they did it came on 10 years after the non-coffee drinkers had come down with Alzheimer’s!   Two to 3 cups a day are enough.  

What's to be done about low testosterone?   Well since the FDA and the Congress in their   infinite wisdom banned Andro in its various forms, the only way to really increase testosterone levels is to find a physician who is into anti-aging and men’s hormone replacement to get either the natural testosterone injections, gels or implants.  Low testosterone equates to low fertility and low libido it's that simple. 

As for increasing the good fats we need to build hormones eat 1 to 2 tablespoons of olive oil daily.

We must remember that sperm can take up to 75 days to be made.  Any sperm-increasing-program should be given 3 to 4 months to fully kick in.  Although in some research, sperm count doubled in 2 weeks using the amino Arginine.  A poor sperm count should be retested every 3 months.

If, after doing most of the parts of this program, sperm count is still low or of poor quality then deeper seated problems with the testes and adrenals should be looked into and worked with.

References:

1. Fewer. by Ben Wattenberg, published by American Enterprise Institute.
2. The Empty Cradle, by Phillip Longman, published by Basic Books.
3. The Economist, Mar.13, 2003, Mar. 25, 2004, Sep.30, 2004.
4. Japanese in vitro fertilization birth top 100,000, Asian Sex Gazette Jan. 28, 2005.
5. Is This You Childs World, by Dorris Rapp MD, published by Bantam, page 501.
6. Irvine, C. et al., “The Potential Adverse Effects of Soybean Phytoestrogens in Infant Feeding”, New Zealand Medical Journal May 24, 1995, p.318.

Addendum:

“The salient feature of Europe, Canada, Japan, and Russia is that they’re running out of babies. What’s happening in the developed world is one of the fastest demographic evolutions in history. Most of us have seen a gazillion heartwarming ethnic comedies—’My Big Fat Greek Wedding’ and its ilk—in which some uptight WASPy type starts dating a gal from a vast, loving, fecund Mediterranean family, so abundantly endowed with sisters and cousins and uncles that you can barely get in the room. It is, in fact, the inversion of the truth. Greece has a fertility rate hovering just below 1.3 births per couple, which is what demographers call the point of ‘lowest-low’ fertility from which no human society has ever recovered. And Greece’s fertility is the healthiest in Mediterranean Europe: Italy has a fertility rate of 1.2, Spain 1.1. Insofar as any citizens of the developed world have ‘big’ families these days, it’s the Anglo democracies: America’s fertility rate is 2.1, New Zealand’s a little below. Hollywood should be making ‘My Big Fat Uptight Protestant Wedding’, in which some sad Greek only child marries into a big heartwarming New Zealand family where the spouse actually has a sibling... This isn’t a projection—it’s happening now.” —Mark Steyn