Do environmental estrogens contribute to the decline in male reproductive health?

Abstract

Several observations suggest that male reproductive health has been declining since World War II in many countries. The incidence of testicular cancer, hypospadias, and cryptorchidism has been increasing and semen quality has been decreasing, and these may have a common etiology. Treatment of several million pregnant women with the synthetic estrogen diethylstilbestrol led to an increase in these conditions among the sons of these women. These abnormalities probably arise during fetal development. The similarity between these effects and the adverse change in male reproductive development and function raised the question of whether the adverse changes are attributable to altered exposures to estrogenic and other endocrine-disrupting agents during fetal development. We speculate that alteration in exposure to estrogen in the past half-century may have caused the changes in male reproductive health.