Environmental chemical effects on testicular function

Over the past few decades, the increasing use and production of chemicals in agriculture, industry and medicine have greatly benefited quality of health and as a consequence, have extended longevity of man. Thousands of new compounds are used to control infections, pests and parasites and to manufacture goods. However, some compounds may be more detrimental than beneficial to health. The advent of new chemicals and their potential toxic effects has become a major health concern. In particular, there has been increasing concern that environmental chemicals may cause germ cell damage, infertility, fetal malformation, and heritable genetic diseases. Indeed, the evidence for chemically induced germ cell damage and infertility appears to be on the increase, especially in man. For example, in the United States approximately 6 954000 couples are involuntarily infertile, 3 000 000 of which have at least one partner who is sterile (Mosher, 1980, Placek and Cynamon, 1980). In addition, many contend that average sperm count of population with fewer than 25 million/ml varied from 20 to 30% (MacLeod and Wang, 1979; Dougherty et al., 1981).