Rippling, sun-kissed torsos fill our screens as shadowy embraces promise untold delight. Gotta love those ‘personal care’ adverts!

I love adverts for all kinds of  personal products involving the manly males. Cologne, shampoo and ‘closer than close’ shaving and gorgeous bodies work their magic on me. But I can’t help wondering how chemicals affect blokes delicate tackle.

The science

Personal products may reduce his libido and sabotage his chances of fatherhood.

Taiwanese researchers found men who use shower gels, shampoos, conditioners, shaving creams and colognes with high levels of hormone disrupting chemicals in their bodies. According to Professor Lee Ching Chang, ‘Infertile men carry double the amounts of harmful plasticizers compared with their fertile peers.’ Results were published in the medical journal ‘Fertility and Sterility.’

Plasticizers invade the gonads ‘Leydig’ cells and suppress Testosterone  – vital for healthy sperm production and virility. Too much testosterone also suppresses sperm production with the anabolic steroids used by body builders  being the main culprits.

Washing the dirt out of male infertility

Phthalates – or industrial plasticizers as they are better known – show up all over the house. Simply put, they are used to coat things and make pouring easier. Who wants runny shampoo? Just a nice plump dollop will do nicely.

Phthalates make plastics flexible and stop them cracking and breaking. That’s why you’l find them in sex toys, shower curtains, vinyl flooring, in the spaghetti-junction mess of  your electrical cables ( all about being bendy).

Checking email and social media updates? Laptops give off phthalates. Notice how plastic hardens with age? Plasticisers aren’t fixed in products. Volatility causes them to blow-off continuously.

Washing clothes? Fabric conditioner for line-dried softness? You may get more softness than you bargained for … between the sheets.

Time to grab a bite, a healthy bite?

Take-out food containers, plastic bottles and soda cans contain phthalates. Cling film plastics used to reheat food leech chemicals straight into your food.

Fruit and veg are full of phthalates from liberally applied pesticides. If you’re trying to conceive organic produce offers safer food.

Kids toys pack a fair plasticizer punch.

Hard to avoid

Safe and clinically clean, what harm could a hospital do? Think again. Every piece of plastic tubing used contains phthalates – IV bags, giving sets and catheters.