Male Laptop Users: Beware Of An Overheated “Lap”
Male readers be advised! Using your laptop placed on your knees to read this post may cause your testicles to heat up quite significantly. However surprisingly, this is not due to the heat dissipated by many laptops, but rather due to the positioning of the legs. A study just published online in the journal Fertility and Sterility investigated ways to avoid the testicles from overheating while using a laptop computer.
Right and left scrotal temperatures were measured in 29 volunteers while working on the laptop in different positions: With closely approximated legs, with closely approximated legs with a lap pad below the laptop, and sitting with legs apart at a 70° angle with a lap pad below the laptop. After 60 minutes with closed legs, temperature increased about 2.4 degrees Celsius, using the lap pad yielded a slightly smaller increase of 2.1 degrees, while spreading the legs resulted in a modest increase of 1.4 degrees.
The authors conclude that prevention of scrotal hyperthermia in laptop users is not feasible, although we would like to disagree and suggest using a flat surface, such as a table or desk, to position your laptop in order to preserve your fertility.
Article abstract: Protection from scrotal hyperthermia in laptop computer users…
Image credit: Pitel…
*This blog post was originally published at Medgadget*
It’s not surprising to people that I’m a “techy” type of guy. Reading tech stories about the latest gadgets is a nice occasional escape from work. One of the ways that medicine and tech intersect is in some “overuse injuries” that I’ve seen and talked with people about. When the Nintendo Wii first came out, there were many stories of “Wii-itis” and tendonitis-related injuries.
