Fertility Crisis: Is Modern Life Making Us Infertile?

Hey everyone, Dr. Josh Axe here. On today's episode, I'll be breaking down a video on how fertility rates are plummeting across the globe and in the United States. And I want you to watch this, uh, about 60 to 90 second video with me, and then I'm going to go through why they're dropping and what we can all do about it.

This is a map on fertility rates state by state in 2005. Most states around the country had a pretty significantly high fertility rate, at least compared to now. Change that map to the year 2021 and it is a shockingly different picture. The entire country significantly declining since 2005.

In the grander scheme of things, the United States of America today is at an all-time low fertility rate, and 43 states across our country in 2020 recorded their lowest rate in more than 3 decades. As a result, total population growth in the United States actually hit an all-time low in 2021, and now up to 1 in every 4 pregnancies are estimated to be ending in miscarriages.

Why is no one talking about this? Why is no one asking if massive birth control consumption might be linked to this? Why is no one demanding an environmental impact study from chemical abortion pills who have active metabolites after you've taken them that get flushed into our wastewater system?

Why is no one asking about exercise rates or diet or the impact of the pharmaceutical industry in our fertility rate? Is nobody alarmed by this? Because we should be.

So she is so right. We should be alarmed by the rates of infertility because they've gone up dramatically. I want you to take a look, and I'm going to go through some of the charts she pulled from the CDC. We pulled the same charts as well to get into this. And first, I want to show you the state of California, per example.

Okay, the state of California— this is over 10 years, 2011 to 2021— and in just 10 years, the fertility rate Went from 63.4% to just 52.8%. And if it keeps going, it's going to be below 50% very, very soon. You can see there, over 500,000 down to 420,000 that count in terms of fertility rates in the state of California. And then we start going state by state here.

You can look at what the fertility rates are. You can see the— anywhere in between, you know, 44.7% to that 92.8%. And obviously, the higher the fertility rate, the better. That's more ideal. It's going to mean more, you know, greater levels of conception in these states. Now, I want to point out something. So, this is in 2005, and this is pulled from the CDC.

Now, look at the next chart here in 2021, and you can see here. Great, great decreases. Okay, I was looking at the state that I live in currently, Tennessee, it going from around that, you know, going from about 64 down to about 57. So probably about anywhere from a, probably a 5 to 11% decrease in fertility across the globe. I want to point out something else interesting.

If you're looking at politics and voting, which we don't cover much on this show, but I just want to mention, you'll notice the states that have seen the biggest decline tend to be more of the blue states, more of the liberal states. You'll see on there California, Oregon, Washington, the states in the Northeast. That's where we're seeing the greatest decreases in fertility.

And I want to go through now why we're seeing such a great decrease in fertility today. Now, first, I want to say that an estimated 1 in 6 people globally are affected by infertility. That's roughly 60 to 80 million couples worldwide have infertility. There might be There could be some that aren't letting people know that.

So the numbers could actually be even higher than these statistics we're seeing. And researchers have linked to factors such as obesity, strenuous physical labor, excessive exercise, substance abuse, heavy drinking, high blood pressure, all rise in fertility. And there are many, many other things here that do this. High emotional stress, not listed here, but something that I've seen in my career.

And by the way, I have taken care of tens of thousands of patients in my career.

Wow.

And many, many women, working with them on improving their fertility, and men as well. And so, this is something I've done in helping a lot of women get pregnant and a lot of men become more fertile as well. So, this is something I do have clinical experience with. I wanted to mention that.

So, I want to go through a few more of the stats and then talk more about what the root cause is and some things you can start doing or you can share with others on how we can all increase Our fertility, because this is important. Going all the way back to the Book of Genesis in the Bible is, you know, God, God telling Adam and Eve, be fruitful and multiply.

It's something that, you know, it's something that we're even called to do by God. So a few decades ago, most women had their first child at about 21 years of age. Okay. Today, that age is closer to 26 or even 27. Now, that's the thing about that. That's a huge difference that women are having kids about 5 to 6 years later in just a few short decades.

Many couples are waiting longer to start their families for several reasons. One might be they want to finish their education or more common. The most common one is women want to start to establish their careers and work in the traditional in traditional companies. We see a lot more divorce now too, as well.

So that's another big one is we're, you know, divorce is, is not as frowned upon in society. So, so these are some of the reasons why we're seeing women have kids later on in life. Now, here's an important fact to know. After the age of 30, statistically, a woman's chances of getting pregnant start to drop each year. Now, that's not to say that I don't have friends.

I have one friend here recently, 42 years old. Got pregnant. I know 45-year-olds that have got pregnant and have, you know, incredibly healthy kids and families. But generally speaking, after the age of 30, and especially after 35 and 40, we start to see, uh, you know, infertility rates increase.

So that's one of the reasons why we are seeing this spike and jump in infertility rates is due to women having kids later on in life. But there are other reasons, one of those being environmental toxins.

There are studies that have shown that certain environmental toxins can, uh, contribute to infertility rates, whether that be exposure to heavy metals such as lead or mercury, exposure to pesticides in our food supply like Roundup, uh, BPA— so bisphenol A, which is a, a, a plastic that's used even in everything from medications to the, the bottles we drink out of— uh, other things like phthalates.

Uh, and again, most of this is substances. It could be Teflon pans or plastics or other things, aluminum and metal cans. These environmental toxins can increase the infertility rate. Now, I want to go through a Johns Hopkins report here as well. Here's what Johns Hopkins found. They reported that infertility started declining around in the 1980s. Okay.

So it started in the '80s and kept drop— dropping afterwards in terms of the numbers that we were looking at. And the first oral birth control pill was approved by the FDA in 1960, but started being used in a much more heavier ways in the '70s, '80s, and then beyond that.

And so we do see a little bit of a correlation here in terms of the rise of infertility rates with the increase in oral birth control.

Now, listen, I'm not saying there is an exact definite correlation, but I do believe, as Isabel on this video shared, is that there are birth control Uh, there, there are— I think a lot of women think, and a lot of physicians, that you take birth control, let's say you take it for 2 years or 5 years or 10 years, and then you get off of it, that, that there, there's no residue in your system, or that there is, uh, you know, or that your hormones will just kind of jump right back to completely normal.

And in some women, they do go back to being normal. However, I have absolutely seen in my clinic When I took care of women, uh, once they got off birth control pills, the biggest symptom I saw was massive Candida and yeast overgrowth. Really, really common issues that I saw with those women. And so what would happen then is, um, uh, it would, uh, you know, that interferes with nutrient absorption.

So if you've got an unhealthy gut microbiome, not enough good bacteria, too much bad, you're not absorbing iron or zinc or B12 or folate. A lot of these nutrients are critical for fertility.

So, while it might not be a direct cause of birth control residue left in the body, there is disruption to organ systems, to cellular health, to deficiencies that are left behind of certain nutrients that are tied to fertility. So, I do believe there's an indirect reason why birth control rates go up. Infertility rises as well.

Also in the late 1960s, the FDA approved IUDs, and within a few years, more than 10% of women using contraception had IUDs. Now, doctors prescribe birth control left and right, and it seems to be the solution for everything from headaches to acne to cramps.

And I'll tell you, I spoke at an event today and I had a woman come up to me at the end and she says, you know, she asked me this question and I try not to give medical advice if I'm not somebody's, you know, practicing physician, if it's this sort of thing specifically for, for, for her as an individual.

Now, obviously I give a lot of medical to, to groups of people or health advice and wellness advice, but she said, hey, should, should I be on birth control? My doctor just prescribed me birth control because I've been struggling with depression. And I thought to myself, you know what? That doesn't seem like we're getting to the root cause of the issue. And there are side effects of birth control.

In fact, you could go right now Online and search right after this video and search birth control, uh, you know, causes vitamin and mineral deficiencies.

And you can just look up the— it's, it's in a, it's in, it's in a drug handbook and it goes through, uh, birth control depletes your body of a lot of B vitamins, of magnesium, of, of a number of new probiotics is the biggest thing it actually causes a deficiency of. So, so there are a lot of things.

So all that being said, birth control is prescribed for Not just birth control for numerous medical conditions, but there are side effects there. Now, going on here, in 2017, 65% of women between the ages of 15 and 49 were using some form of contraception. Now, oral contraceptive pills is around 14%, and long-acting reversible contraceptives such as IUDs and implants Uh, is about 10.4%.

And I do want to say this, I am not a— listen, I'm not a fan of any type of birth control contraceptive pill because it's a medication that depletes your body of nutrients. And I'm also definitely not a fan of IUDs because putting that in the body and, you know, let me just say this, a lot of people don't realize this, but you might think, well, some part of it's natural, it's copper, right?

It's, it's, uh, It's, it's that you can find that in food and whatever, but if you have too much of a certain mineral, it, in certain receptor sites in the body, it starts to displace others and causes imbalance. So I know as a fact, and you can do this research yourself, that if you have too much of copper in your system, it actually causes issues with zinc and iron.

Zinc and iron are crucial to getting pregnant. Okay. Iron, you know, right? It's critically important for, for, for pregnancy. So all that being said, here's what I want to talk about now is here are some ways to improve your fertility rates and to improve them across the globe. The first one is we need a mindset change about kids. That's the first. This is my first prescription.

We need to change our mindset about having kids. Can I tell you, having kids is the greatest blessing of my life. It's the greatest blessing ever. And let me tell you my, I, I don't know if this is, I, I actually think I can say if somebody said, Josh, what's your biggest regret in life?

I actually don't know that I regret, cuz I felt like, I feel like there are things that, uh, you know, God's timing, but I wish I would've had kids earlier. I love having kids so much. I wish I would've had kids earlier. So going back to this, I think that we need to change our mindset about kids being just, you know, work or a chore, or life ends when we have kids.

Like there are some narratives and self-talk people have thinking, well, life is over. Life change, you know, life is, um, is, could be worse when you have kids. That's a false narrative. Whether you're watching, I don't know, Chelsea Handler or someone like that talk about how, how great it is.

By the way, statistically, I don't necessarily, listen, here, here's all I can say is that most people that have kids and great families, I mean, they would not change anything. And I do believe we need to start viewing kids as being a blessing. And if you read the Bible, that's the view of the Bible. Whether you're, uh, Jewish or Christian or, or, or something close to that.

Again, we, we really see that, you know, kids are a great blessing. So my number one prescription is have a— transform your mind about kids. And I think having them earlier, that improves the fertility rate. Of course, the next one is, uh, don't take birth control, uh, pills and chemicals. Don't take med— here's the thing, don't take Birth control medications.

You know, there are natural ways, natural family planning, obviously condoms. There are, there are, uh, things you can do in testing mucus and, and, and looking at a, uh, a, a, a, a thing like a Lady-Comp. It's, it's, it's, uh, a way of sort of testing, you know, where you're at in your cycle.

So there are natural forms of birth control that, that's a way that we can improve our fertility rates because It is going to, uh, you're not going to have the— by the way, I mentioned this earlier, the residue, or she mentions it. Did you know that the— oh, some of the highest rates of birth control are not in humans, they're in livestock sometimes?

So anyways, it's keeping animals from, from getting, getting pregnant. And so some of that we're getting in our milk and meat supply. Important thing to consider there as well of why it's great to eat Which is my next one here, is eat organic. Okay? Eating organically, you're gonna have less chemicals. You're gonna have less of things like Roundup that can, that can decrease fertility.

The next one here is lower your carbohydrate consumption and increase your consumption of healthy protein and healthy fats. One of the biggest causes of infertility are conditions like PCOS, uh, or uterine fibroids or endometriosis.

All, a lot of those, specifically PCOS, is typically correlated with consuming too many carbohydrates, that's throwing blood sugar off or insulin off, which then will cause infertility. So it's really important that you lower carbs, get a lot more organic meat, vegetables, uh, even things like berries are fine, you know, but getting more low-carb foods, some healthy fats like avocados.

In fact, do you know historically Avocados. If you look at an avocado, it's shaped very similar to a uterus. And then olives look like, like testicles or ovaries. Okay. And so foods that look like organs actually supports those organs, the health of those organs. And so specifically for fertility, since the beginning of time, certain foods have been consumed for fertility.

For women, again, it's been avocado and olives. For men, it's been figs. Figs look like testicles to a degree. Bananas, obvious reasons there as well. But there are certain nutrients in those foods that actually support fertility there as well. And so again, eat a really natural diet that's organic, that's low in carbohydrates, that will tremendously help fertility.

The other thing is reducing stress. If your stress is high, your body's in a fight-or-flight response. That's going to increase rates of infertility. And so going on walks, spending time in nature, just lowering the workload, doing everything you can to just reduce stress, build peace in your life, that helps fertility rates statistically.

Also being active, being a regular— a person that's exercising. Now here's the thing, there's a happy medium. You don't want to under-exercise where you do nothing. You also— it's not ideal to be doing, you know, a CrossFit workout 3 hours a day or something incredibly— or running, you know, double marathons. Those statistically also decrease fertility.

So, hey, exercising 30 to, you know, 90 minutes a day in a healthy way, that is good for fertility. And then here are some supplements and herbs that have been shown to be good for fertility. Number 1 is zinc. Zinc is critical for sperm in men and for hormone balance in women. So zinc is really crucial. Royal jelly for women is known to be good for fertility rates and men.

Methylated B vitamins or taking a liver or glandular supplement where the vitamins, B vitamins are highly absorbable is good for fertility. Vitex for women helps balance out estrogen and progesterone levels. Maca root for both men and women can support fertility. And for men, there are a few other supplements like ginseng and fenugreek, which increase testosterone.

And for women, things like wild yam, ashwagandha, or some other herbs that can help increase fertility. So, hey, I want to hear from you. What are your thoughts on the big reasons for the massive drop in infertility? And remember, going back, a state like California, fertility rates have dropped by more than 10%.

And as, uh, as Isabel talked about, we have the lowest rates Of birth, uh, right now in fertility, uh, than we've ever had right now in the history of our country. So overall, we're seeing these fertility rates drop. So let me know, hey, why do you think this is?

Give me any comments, or if you have any thoughts on what's causing infertility and also some advice on, hey, what are ways to increase fertility? I'd love to hear from you if there's some things I missed here on the episode. And hey, if you've enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe. I've got a lot more great videos and interviews coming out.

And you may not realize this, if you're not subscribed, only a small fraction of the videos I'm doing will come up on your feed. Make sure you don't miss out. I've got some great episodes on health, personal growth, and how to help you live your best life. Hey, thanks for watching this episode on the fertility crisis and how to improve it.