The findings have led to a leading British fertility expert to advise men to stop being addicted² to mobile phones.

 

The study - by highly respected specialists - found that sperm levels of men who kept their phones in their pocket during the day were seriously affected³ in 47 per cent of cases compare to just 11 per cent in the general population.

 

Professor Martha Dirnfeld, of the Technion University in Haifa, said: "We analysed the amount of active swimming sperm and the quality and found that it had been reduced.

 

"We think this is being caused by a heating of the sperm from the phone and by electromagnetic activity."

 

The team monitored more than 100 men attending a fertility clinic for a year.

 

They found that besides men keeping their phones close to their groin many spoke⁴ on the phone while it was charging and kept it only a few centimetres from their bed.

 

Even keeping the phone on a bedside table appears to raise lower sperm cell counts.

 

The findings are in the journal Reproductive BioMedicine and support a long-feared link between dropping fertility rates in men and the prevalent use of cellular⁵ phones.

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