Fertility among men under the age of 25 could be on the decline, according to statistics released on Friday by a Taoyuan hospital.
For five years, the Reproductive Medicine Center at Hungchi Women and Children’s Hospital has been offering an NT$8,000 cash reward to prospective sperm donors, but only about 30 percent of men under the age of 25 have been able to pass sperm motility and quantity tests to claim the reward, the center said.
About half of the 400 or so sperm donors each year are university students based in Taoyuan’s Jhongli District (中壢), many of whom sign up with friends, it said.
Under the Artificial Reproduction Act (人工生殖法), men aged 20 to 50 who have passed the required health and laboratory screenings can be sperm donors.
However, donors who have fathered a child or whose sperm was already frozen and stored less than 10 years ago are not allowed to make new donations.
About 40 percent of infertile men work under high temperatures or immense stress, or are obese with a BMI of more than 35, center director Tang Yun-lung (唐雲龍) said.
About 40 percent of these men are engineers, followed by about 10 percent who work in bakeries or kitchens.
Men wanting to produce healthy semen should adopt a healthy lifestyle — going to bed early, cutting out tobacco and alcohol, reducing stress and any sense of unease, decreasing their sugar intake, spending time outdoors and exercising regularly, preferably swimming and jogging, Tang said.
Other tips include spending time out in the sun, which helps the body produce vitamin D, as well as refraining from long periods of sitting, which causes toxins to pile up inside the body and decreases blood circulation, Tang said.
Men who plan to have children after 30 should consider having their sperm frozen, because sperm motility deteriorates with age, he added.
Research indicates that the contributing factors behind low motility and quantity in semen include eating out frequently, deep-fried foods, a diet high in sugar, a lack of exercise, staying up late and environmental hormones, which are hormone-like toxins that disrupt the human endocrine system, hospital president Chang Hung-chi (張紅淇) said.
If young people have developed one or more of these habits, it could present a bleak outlook for the nation’s birthrate, Chang said.
Three Taiwanese airlines have prohibited passengers from packing Bluetooth earbuds and their charger cases in checked luggage. EVA Air and Uni Air said that Bluetooth earbuds and charger cases are categorized as portable electronic devices, which should be switched off if they are placed in checked luggage based on international aviation safety regulations. They must not be in standby or sleep mode. However, as charging would continue when earbuds are placed in the charger cases, which would contravene international aviation regulations, their cases must be carried as hand luggage, they said. Tigerair Taiwan said that earbud charger cases are equipped
Foreign travelers entering Taiwan on a short layover via Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport are receiving NT$600 gift vouchers from yesterday, the Tourism Administration said, adding that it hopes the incentive would boost tourism consumption at the airport. The program, which allows travelers holding non-Taiwan passports who enter the country during a layover of up to 24 hours to claim a voucher, aims to promote attractions at the airport, the agency said in a statement on Friday. To participate, travelers must sign up on the campaign Web site, the agency said. They can then present their passport and boarding pass for their connecting international
UNILATERAL MOVES: Officials have raised concerns that Beijing could try to exert economic control over Kinmen in a key development plan next year The Civil Aviation Administration (CAA) yesterday said that China has so far failed to provide any information about a new airport expected to open next year that is less than 10km from a Taiwanese airport, raising flight safety concerns. Xiamen Xiangan International Airport is only about 3km at its closest point from the islands in Kinmen County — the scene of on-off fighting during the Cold War — and construction work can be seen and heard clearly from the Taiwan side. In a written statement sent to Reuters, the CAA said that airports close to each other need detailed advanced
The age requirement for commercial pilots and airline transport pilots is to be lowered by two years, to 18 and 21 years respectively, to expand the pool of pilots in accordance with international standards, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications announced today. The changes are part of amendments to articles 93, 119 and 121 of the Regulations Governing Licenses and Ratings for Airmen (航空人員檢定給證管理規則). The amendments take into account age requirements for aviation personnel certification in the Convention on International Civil Aviation and EU’s aviation safety regulations, as well as the practical needs of managing aviation personnel licensing, the ministry said. The ministry
RSS