Environmental Science› Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis› Effects and risks of endocrine disrupting chemicals

Environmental epidemiology — Urinary parabens and male reproductive health

Submitted 2026-10-22

Field: Environmental Science › Health, Toxicology and MutagenesisType: No effect foundArea: environmental epidemiologyTarget: Urinary parabens and male reproductive healthStage: full study

Hypothesis

Higher urinary paraben concentrations would be associated with altered reproductive hormones and poorer semen quality in men, as animal studies suggested.

What failed

In men from an infertility clinic (hormones n = 167, semen n = 190), methyl and propyl paraben were not significantly associated with any outcome, and butyl paraben was not associated with hormones or conventional semen parameters; only a positive association of butyl paraben with sperm DNA damage was seen (p for trend = 0.03).

Broken assumption

Paraben exposure at everyday levels measurably affects men's reproductive hormones and semen quality.

Why

The authors found no evidence of a relationship with hormones or semen quality, and note that high within-person variability in paraben exposure across repeated urine samples and a modest sample size may have limited their ability to detect subtle effects.

From the published paper: Meeker et al. Environmental Health Perspectives, 2010. ↗Public domain

Research ideas from this failure

Unvetted lead — read the papers

New hypotheses this failure suggests, each with a crucial experiment, a rival explanation of the original result, and the papers it rests on. Written by AI from paper titles and abstracts found on OpenAlex (and Europe PMC, for life and health sciences).

Related failures (1)

Matched on shared genes, mechanisms and ways of failing as well as wording. Each shows why it matched — treat these as leads rather than verdicts.

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Why it matched: same research area

Links in published research

Where this experiment's genes are known to matter outside its own research area, and the papers behind those links. Sources: Open Targets Platform and Europe PMC.