Say Hello To Male Birth Control ...

There may finally be a birth control method -- other than abstinence -- which will be approved by the pope and the rest of the catholic church.

Yeah, I know ... why does a 50-plus year old, post-menopausal woman care about birth control -- especially male birth control? But this is interesting stuff ... albeit not necessarily good stuff. Consider this, the Cleveland Clinic has come to the conclusion that cell phones are linked to low sperm counts. This recent study gives a whole new meaning to the Joan Rivers line "Can we talk?"

Doesn't the whole idea of this cause you to shake you head and wonder "why?" I mean, why did somebody come up with this idea for a study? Or why didn't I know about this back in the day when I used to worry about the possibility of getting pregnant?

It seems that a man keeping his cell phone "on" and in his pants pocket, puts the busy signal between his sperm and their quality and quantity. According to Ashok Agarwal, who is the Director of the Center for Reproductive Medicine at the Cleveland Clinic, the vicinity of the working cell phone to a man's testicles seems to cause some extra heat. That heat can cause the receiver to come slamming down on how a man produces sperm for reproducing, and whether they can swim like Michael Phelps or just tread water ... so to speak.

The Clinic gathered 361 men for the study --- probably contacted them by telephone first --- then did the study for 13-months. These guys kept their cell phones in their pockets ... just 2.5 centimeters from their gonads ... and used an ear piece to talk, while keeping the phone close to the "wells of life." 

These men seemed to trade their little swimmers for the gift of gab. Guys who used their phones for more than fours hours each day saw their sperm count drop from 86-million per milliliter to a mere 50-million per milliliter.  Honestly, how many men do you know who spend 240-minutes on their phone every day? Surely, these guys were just too exhausted from talking to even think about sperm production ... they were worn out, and so were those 36-million little guys produced by their "boys!"

I'm still trying to figure out how this whole thing works. These guys signed up for a research study on their testes. Can't you just hear the talk around the water cooler in the office or the urinal in the men's room? 

"Yeah, I got myself signed up for a sex study ... they're wanting to test the strength of my 'boys.' Yep, I'm gonna show 'em just the stuff I'm made of. Uh, huh .. I'm gonna put the rest of those dudes to shame once they get a peek at my rather large 'personality' and my Olympic team swimmers. Step aside guys, we're gonna make history," he says as he puts everything back in place, zips up, runs his fingers through his hair as he passes the mirror and walks back to his desk standing an inch or two taller.

Then, just 13-months later this guy no longer stands at the urinal ... he's sitting in the stall, looking down and mumbling "guys, what have you done ... you let me down." And he can't hear the guys at the urinal laughing because he's got hearing loss from all those hours on the cell phone. Not to mention the decrease in the size and quality of his "personality," which now resembles something that just got fished out of a cold lake.

Mothers --- if you want to become grandmothers --- tell your sons and sons-in-law to get the phones out of their pants pockets. Don't even let them clip it on to their belts ... even that is too close to the "Tropics of You Know What."  Agarwal says even a"a slight increase in temperature could result in a decreased sperm condition." 

But according to the study, your potential to become a grandmother and to maintain the family line is in jeopardy even if the men in your life put the phone to their ear. It is thought the phone can expose the hypothalamus to excessive electromagnetic energy, and that might hurt hormones which govern sperm production.

The Cleveland Clinic news release states more research is needed before coming to hard conclusions. Let's see how fast the volunteers clammer to get to the front of the line for that study.

" ... and the buzzards keep circling!"