Watchout For Your Laptop

It is true that scrotal temperature can have an effect on fertility

Hmmm, we were a little bit skeptical about this story but we thought would run it anyway. According to researchers in America a laptop computer may cause you to suffer from infertility. Apparently because of the heat that is generated by the laptop if you place it on your lap and the heat reaches down to your genitals you will be increasing your “scrotal temperature” significantly enough to affect your fertility.

Professor Yefim Sheynkin who led the research said that he had studied 29 volunteers between the ages of 21 and 35. The study was done by getting them to place their working laptops on their laps for two separate one hour sessions in a specially temperature monitored room.  He said that after the men had been working on their computers their scrotal temperatures rose by around almost 3°C which is known to be able to cause infertility.

It should be noted that using a laptop is unlikely to cause permanent infertility but only temporary infertility due to the extra heat. Professor Yefim Sheynkin therefore recommended that it would be better to put laptops on a desk as opposed to directly on your lap. 

This sort of research while interesting is not really actually of much use. Only a very small amount of volunteers were used and fertility cannot be determined by scrotal temperature alone. It is true that scrotal temperature can have an effect on fertility but the results should be taken with a pinch of salt.

At no point in the research was it noted that the use of laptops had any effect on erectile function and it is important to remember that fertility and erectile functions are completely different things. Men who are infertile may have excellent erectile function and men who are perfectly fertile may have severe erectile dysfunction.