Wednesday, May 24, 2006

If it works for twins...

I can't help but to wonder if it helps for singletons, too, and the researchers weren't looking in their data for the recovering, lucky Infertile.

Diet Linked to Twin Births

After ruling out the tripled occurance of twin births in the last 30 years as not being due of late to ART because of decreased numbers of embryos transferred, scientists now say that the presence of bovine growth hormone in our food supply may be the cause of increasing fraternal twinning.

In a recent study, it was "found that the omnivores and vegetarians were five times more likely to have fraternal twins than the vegans."

To wit, an
insulin-like growth factor, a protein released by the liver in response to growth hormone, may be the reason. Studies have shown that the protein increases ovulation and that it persists in the body after entering via digested food, particularly milk. Drinking a glass of milk a day over a 12-week period raised levels of the protein in the body by 10 percent. Vegan women, it turns out, have 13 percent lower concentrations of it in their blood.

Further,
Steinman observed in the May 6 issue of The Lancet that although the twinning rate in the U.K.--where bovine growth hormone is banned--rose by 16 percent between 1992 and 2001, it increased by 32 percent in the U.S., where the substance is not banned. Of the new work he says: "This study shows for the first time that the chance of having twins is affected both by heredity and environment or, in other words, by both nature and nurture."

So I must surmise, if some greedy bitches are getting double the kids from a daily glass of milk, why can't we Infertiles shoot for just one?

Got milk?

Get some then.

Damn the lactose intolerence, too.

3 comments:

DD said...

Shit. Now I've got something else to add to my list of to-dos...

What? Did you really think we just gave up trying?

Demeter said...

That is a very interesting finding! Thanks for sharing.

Cricket said...

I forgot to mention that I don't think it is the first time an environmental influence raised twinning rates. Anybody else remember the sweet potato fertiles in Africa?