If you’re thinking that a 3 pack of condoms costs around $5 and Mountain Dew is only $1.99
for the 2-liter, so why not save yourself $3 on your contraception, think again!
Pay the extra money!
Mountain Dew does not kill your sperm, lower sperm count, make your penis smaller, or shrivel
up your testicles (unless it’s ice cold and placed directly on your testicles, then
there might be some temporary shriveling).
I always love a good urban legend.
I once got a co-worker to believe coffee shrank his penis.
All I needed to do was use a bunch of big words in a meaningful way.
(It also helps being a paramedic, as people tend to take your medically protestations
more seriously and you have a bigger store of medical terms on hand.
It provides quite a bit of fun, I can tell you.)
I made sure to use medical terms he didn’t understand, and BAM!
He stopped drinking coffee for weeks.
He figured it out a few weeks later and never believed anything I said again.
I can only assume this myth came about in a similar way.
That being said, I’m never one to just say something without explaining why.
Let’s look at Mountain Dew and see why exactly it doesn’t kill sperm.
Mountain dew has numerous ingredients.
The two that get mentioned the most in this myth are caffeine and Yellow dye #5, also
known as Tartrazine.
Let’s start with caffeine.
Mountain dew contains 54mg of caffeine in a 12 oz can.
That might seem like a lot since coke has 34mg per 12 ounces, Dr. Pepper has 41, and
Pepsi has 38.
If caffeine was truly the cause, drinking coffee would also have to be out.
The average cup of drip coffee has 217mg per 12 ounces, about 4 times more than the Mountain
Dew!
So for comparison’s sake, Mountain Dew doesn’t contain very much caffeine, compared to other
things many commonly drink.
The idea that caffeine affects the chances of having a baby is true.
There have been several studies that show women who drink 3 or more cups of coffee a
day have a decreased chance of becoming pregnant compared to those who don’t drink coffee.
Unfortunately, the exact nature of why caffeine affects conception rates is unknown.
Because those who drink more caffeine also tend to have unhealthier lifestyles, many
of the studies site life style as the reason and not necessarily the caffeine itself.
The idea that caffeine intake affects sperm in some way seems to be dose related.
The Chemical Health Hazard Assessment Division of the Canadian Bureau of Chemical Safety
(they really need to work on that name!) reviewed all the current studies on the subject and
found that they showed that if a man drank one or two cups of coffee per day, he would
have an increase in his sperms motility (the ability to move) and density.
If you drank 4 or more cups and also smoked more than 1 pack of cigarettes per day, your
sperms motility and density would decrease.
The study concluded that only heavy smokers need to worry about drinking too much coffee
and sperm problems.
The authors went on to say that those sperm problems would most likely not affect fertility.
In the end, it appears you would have to drink about eleven 12 ounce cans of Mountain Dew
(or a similar amount of other popular caffeinated soft drinks) and smoke over 20 cigarettes
before your sperm would be affected.
If you did, that affect wouldn’t cause any fertility issues.
At that point, I would worry more about your cancer and diabetes risk, not to mention the
effects on your heart and lungs, before I would worry about your sperm.
Now let’s look at the other proposed cause of sperm problems and Mountain Dew- Tartrazine
(yellow dye #5).
Tartrazine has been used in food, ice creams, drugs, and many other products since 1916.
Most all of Tartazine you put in your body will come out in your urine.
Very little is actually metabolized by our bodies.
The European Food Safety Authority re-evaluated the effects of Tartrazine in 2009.
What they found was that there are no adverse effects on reproduction or development from
consuming Tartazine.
They even tested people at a rate of 1225 mg/kg and still found no adverse effects.
So for a 175 pound person that’s 97,443 miligrams!
It would be impossible to drink enough Mountain Dew to exceed these levels.
Sperm affects aside, the FDA does recommend that we should only ingest 5 milligrams per
kilogram per day of Yellow dye #5.
This has nothing to do with reproduction worries, but more about allergic reactions.
There is a small percentage of the population that is allergic to Yellow dye number 5 (1/10,000
causes hives according to the FDA).
The Center for Science in the Public Interest notes that Tartrazine is found in so many
products, from Kraft Macaroni and Cheese and Doritos to shampoos and hand stamps, that
the average daily consumption is approximately 12.75mg per day.
At these levels, there is still no worries about sperm problems- just allergy ones.
In the end, Mountain Dew will not affect you sperm, testis, or penis size in any way.
Should you want to ignore all scientific evidence to the contrary, I suggest you also have your
mate stand on her head after copulation.
There is no way she could get pregnant then!
According to the World Health Organization, the average ejaculation contains approximately
100 million sperm cells.
If you have less than 20 million per milliliter, you are at risk of infertility issues.
Even though Mountain Dew doesn’t affect sperm, temperature does.
Optimal sperm production requires specific temperatures.
It’s for this reason that when men get too cold, as in the case of swimming in a cold
pool (“I just got out of the pool!”) your testes retract back into your body.
Conversely, when you get too warm, your body allows them to hang lower via the cremaster
muscle.
This keeps them cooler.
Many studies point to a temperature of between 35-36 degrees Celsius as the optimum sperm
production temperature.
Your body is normally around 37 degrees C. The warmer your testes, the greater chance
your sperm will have damage.
So keep the lap-tops off your lap and your heated car seats on low!