Infertility rates have doubled globally from 1 in 8 to 1 in 6 couples, with sperm counts dropping dramatically over 40 years. McCall McPherson and a fertility expert link the crisis to modern life: processed foods, toxins, poor sleep, and chronic stress trigger inflammation that suppresses reproductive function.
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Talk to me too. So it seems like even over the last 5 to 10 years, and maybe my data set is skewed because I serve thyroid people, right? But I feel like infertility is becoming a real issue. Like people, it seems, are struggling more to get pregnant now than they were 30 years ago. Do you feel like that's accurate?
You're spot on, and data supports how accurate you are. You know, when I entered the field almost 15 years ago, we used to say 1 out of every 8 couples would have infertility. Now, worldwide, that number is 1 out of 6. And if we look in the US for couples trying to get pregnant for the first time, it's 1 out of 5. So we are seeing a definite increase in the incidence of infertility. We are also seeing an increase in a lot of things, you know, other markers. So higher rate of miscarriage, higher rate of women having a low ovarian reserve or low egg count, huge drop in sperm counts over 40 years. So we're seeing multiple fertility markers besides just can you get pregnant showing this temporal change over these decades. And it's not a coincidence that these things are changing in the same time where we have a more inflammatory world, more insulin resistance and diabetes and autoimmune disease. The truth is that we have normalized as a society a really unhealthy way of living. And that's not self-blame, but that's just the world around us, whether it's the toxins that we're exposed to, what's in our air, what's in our water, the foods we eat, how they are processed, and the hustle culture of I'm not going to sleep, I'm just going to go, go, go. And all of these little things, they actually add up. And when your body is constantly under this stress, under this inflammation, it wants to protect you first and foremost. And your brain— I always say that inflammation, it's interference coming back to the brain.
